John's Revelation Unveiled

CLICK HERE FOR PDF FILE OF ENTIRE BOOK | BIBLIOGRAPHY

Queensland Presbyterian Theological College

Brisbane, Australia

A.D. 2000

Other Publications by Dr. Lee

My Conversion: Jesus Grabbed Me!, IDRS, Kortenhoef, Netherlands., 1960, 8pp.

The Conversion of an Atheist, DRC Pubs., Cape Town, RSA, 1961, 5pp.

The Sabbath in the Bible, L.D.O.S., London, 1966, 20pp.

Culture: Its Origen, Development, and Goal, SCP, Cape May, N.J., 27pp.

Nationality and the Bible, SCP, Cape May, N.J., 21pp.

Communism Versus Christianity, LCICCC, Philadelphia, 1969, 20pp.

The Biblical Theory of Christian Education, SCP, Cape May, N.J., 20pp.

Communism Versus Creation, Craig Press, Nutley, N.J., 1969, 260pp.

Calvin on the Sciences, Sovereign Grace Union, England, 1969, 50pp

Race and Nation, Wever, Stellenbosch, RSA, 1969, 35pp.

Materialism, Idealism, and Calvinism, SAVBCW, Potchefstroom, RSA, 1970, 8pp.

Philosophy in 20th Century America, SAVBCW, Potchefstroom, RSA, 1970, 27pp.

The Lord's Day, DRC Commission on Public Morals, Pretoria, RSA, 1970. 20pp.

Christian Introduction: History of Philosophy, P&R, Philadelphia, 1970, 261pp.

The Basic Ideas of Communism, Anticom, Pretoria, RSA, 1971, 26pp.

The Salvation of Early-Dying Infants, DRCTJ, Stellenbosch, RSA, 1971, 15pp.

Missions the Heart of Church's Calling, DRCTJ, Stellenbosch, RSA, 1971, 15pp.

The Covenantal Sabbath, Lord's Day Observance Society, London, 1971, 343pp.

You Baptize Incorrectly!, DRC Pubs., Pretoria, RSA, 1971, 15pp.

How to Confess Christ, ICCC, Amsterdam, Netherlands, 1971, 16pp.

The Westminster Confession and Modern Society, SRF, Edinburgh, 1972, 20pp.

Communist Eschatology, Craig Press, Nutley, N.J., 1973, 1201pp.

The Origin and Destiny of Man, Craig Press, Nutley, N.J., 1973, 125pp.

Sunday the Sabbath, DRC Pubs., Pretoria, RSA, 1975, 53pp.

Ten Commandments Today!, Lord's Day Observance Society, London, 1976, 15pp.

The Central Significance of Culture, P&R, Philadelphia, 1976, 164pp.

The Christian Manifesto 1984, Christian Liberty Press, Chicago, 1976, 18pp.

What About Baptism?, SRF, Edinburgh, 1976, 17pp.

About Sunday, Lord's Day Observance Society, London, 1978, 78pp.

The Office of Deacon, PCA Commissioners' Handbook, 1978, 27pp.

The Ministry of the Word, PCA Commissioners' Handbook, 1978, 55pp.

Christocracy: Divine Savior's Law, Jesus Lives, Tallahassee, 1979, 25pp.

Toward a Biblical Theology, Jesus Lives, Tallahassee, 1979, 12pp.

Effective Evangelism, Jesus Lives, Tallahassee, 1979, 12pp.

Are the Mosaic Laws for Today?, Jesus Lives, Tallahassee, 1979, 52pp.

Creation and Commission, Jesus Lives, Tallahassee, 1979, 40pp.

Mt. Sinai and the Sermon on the Mount, Jesus Lives, Tallahassee, 1979, 23pp.

Communism, Korean Journal of Reformed Theology, Seoul, 1980, 25pp.

Abraham Kuyper: Rebirth of Knowledge, Jesus Lives, Bristol, Tn., 1980, 12pp.

John Calvin: True Presbyterian, Jesus Lives, Brisbane, Australia, 1981, 22pp.

Communism: Christian Evaluation, Jesus Lives, Brisbane Australia, 1981, 74pp.

Have You Neglected Your Baby?, Jesus Lives, Brisbane, Australia, 1981, 13pp.

Will Christ or Satan Win World?, Jesus Lives, Brisbane Australia, 1981, 32pp.

Pentecostalism: Outpouring or Heresy?, Commonwealth Pub., Dallas, 1986, 79pp.

Calvin on Creation, P.U.C.H.E., Potchefstroom, RSA, 1986, 53pp.

Revealed to Babies!, Commonwealth Publishers, Dallas, 1986, 20pp..

Biblical Private Property vs. Socialism, Ex Nihilo T.J., Brisbane, 1988, 7pp.

Sprinkling Is Scriptural!, The Presbyterian, England, 1990, 44pp.

Biblical Principles for Church Architecture, The Presbyterian, 1991, 44pp.

The Christian Afrikaners, 1652-1980., G.D.L., Cape Town, 1991, 215pp.

Revive Your Work! (ed.), Presbyterian Church of Qld., Australia 1991, 104pp.

Neglecting Your Baby? The Presbyterian, Bristol, England, 1991 rep., 16pp.

Culture, Korean Society for Reformed Faith and Action, Seoul, 1992, 208pp.

Antichrist in Scripture, Focus Christian Ministries, Sussex, 1992, 58pp.

Calvin on the Weekly Sabbath, British Reformed Journal, England 1993, 17pp.

Toward a Biblical Philosophy, Persuasive Press, Cambridge, Ma., 1993, 60pp.

The Fascinating History of Early Britain. BRJ, England, July 1994, 11pp.

The Anabaptists and Their Stepchildren, Blue Banner, Dallas, 1994, 62pp.

My Father's Slayer Saved! Wilston Presbyterian Church, Australia, 1994, 10pp.

Patrick and His Writings, Counsel of Chalcedon, Atlanta, July-Aug. 1996, 12pp.

Brothers Because of Bloodshed, Counsel of Chalcedon, Atlanta, July 1997, 20pp.

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ã Copyright December 1999

Table of Contents

Biographical Particulars

Commendation by Professor Dr. Loraine Boettner

"Dear Dr. Lee,

Some time ago, I received your treatise [Onward, Christian Soldiers!]. I have read this with much interest and approval, and have nothing to offer but commendation. It is splendid for the purpose intended ¾ Scripturally sound and interestingly written....

I like very much the optimistic view that Christianity is to triumph throughout the World. Yes indeed, righteousness is to conquer the Earth! That view is much needed today. And you bring out so clearly that this is the view presented in the Scriptures....

I want to commend you for a splendid devotional work. And I like this especially since it is written so clearly and strongly from the optimistic viewpoint which I think brings out the true meaning of that element in the Psalms. I had never realized how definitely and consistently optimistic the Psalms were. You have brought out many new thoughts that I have missed.... I hope that this work will be widely used.... I think that it will do much to help make known the predicted latter-day glory of the Church....

I think that you have given a good explanation of that very difficult passage, Rev. 20:7-10. That is a section of Scripture that has been puzzling to me, as on the surface it seems to indicate a future final apostasy of the Church; and yet that seemed so contrary to what I believed would actually take place ¾ no apostasy but rather a smooth transfer or merger into the heavenly Kingdom....

Dr. Warfield did not believe that there would be a final apostasy. You have given a good explanation ¾ that there is no actual apostasy, no real danger ever faces the saints, and that the Devil and his followers are merely exposed before the righteous shortly before their final expulsion into hell. Thank you for it.

Evidently the book will be a very thorough and comprehensive treatment of the subject.... I do welcome the fact that you are preparing such a book.

Sincerely,

Loraine Boettner, Rock Port, Missouri 66482, May 20th 1978."

Explanation of Commendation

My Onward Christian Soldiers! was all too slowly being written and mailed piece by piece to the great Prof. Dr. Loraine Boettner ¾ famous author of the World-renowned works Immortality, Roman Catholicism, Studies in Theology, The Millennium, and The Reformed Doctrine of Predestination. To spur me on, he wrote to me about my Onward Christian Soldiers! seven times. That he did on October 26th, 1973; November 13th, 1973; January 9th, 1974; April 24th, 1974; September 9th, 1975; February 26th, 1977; and May 20th, 1978.

On February 26th, 1977, he wrote: "If excerpts from any of my letters will serve as even a partial Introduction to your book, I much prefer that you use them rather than for me to try to write anything else. With Best Wishes, Sincerely, Loraine Boettner."

I moved from the U.S.A. to Australia at the end of 1980, in order to teach Systematic Theology at the Queensland Presbyterian Theological College in Brisbane. On September 7th 1984, Dr. Boettner wrote to me: "I remember with real appreciation your visit here at my home about nine years ago. And now I suppose you are still in Australia, about half-way around the World from here! I am writing primarily to say that in the recent [revised 1984] edition of The Millennium, I have added a chapter, 'The Millennium of Revelation Twenty.'

"This presents a new interpretation of chapter 19:11-21 which carries over into the 20th chapter ¾ and, I believe, gives a truly logical basis for the postmillennial position. I have never been fully satisfied with the view there is to be a fearful apostasy just before the end of the Church Age, in which the saints would be all but annihilated just before Christ returns.... I believe that this [my new] interpretation solves that problem; that it firmly establishes the postmillennial system. I am sending you a copy of this book....

"I shall be glad to have your reaction to this...interpretation. I highly respect your position as a Reformed Theologian and a Postmillennialist, and I shall await with interest your evaluation. Loraine Boettner."

Since writing that last letter to me, Dr. Boettner has gone on to Heaven to be with Jesus. All my subsequent teaching tasks have till now prevented my completion and revision of the manuscript to my satisfaction. But now this has been achieved, out of gratitude to Dr. Boettner I can think of no better way of honouring him than to follow his suggestion of using excerpts from some of his various letters to me ¾ in the above Commendation.

Rev. Prof. Dr. Francis Nigel Lee, Brisbane, Australia, 1999,for 2000ff.

Preface

The following pages are excerpted from the latter part of the thoroughly-revised and greatly-expanded edition of my forthcoming work Onward, Christian Soldiers! Is is subtitled: Toward a Victorious Eschatology.

That work goes through the whole Bible, from Genesis to Revelation. This explains ¾ in my present excerpt therefrom ¾ the subsequent page numbers, footnote numbers, and format. For what follows are but the last 31 studies of passages from Holy Scripture for 366 "daily readings" and Bible meditations ¾ one for each day of the entire year (including provision for a leap year).

Currently, I lack the time painstakingly to re-format all of this in what now follows. Yet I am very desirous to get this excerpt into the hands of my students and certain friends, before 2000 with its 'Y2K' scenario. So, as an interim measure, I am now simply presenting it here 'as is.'

I much respect many elements in Preterism. Yet I believe the consistent eschatological teaching of the infallible Word of God ¾ is Classic Historicalism. Certainly that is the position of the mainline Christian Church reflected in: the Patristic Fathers; the Mediaeval Scholastics; all of the many Protestant Reformers; the 1561 Belgic Confession (arts. 28 & 29); the Preamble to the 1619 Canons of Dordt; the 1645 Westminster Directory for the Publick Worship of God (in the middle of its Publick Prayer before the Sermon); and the unadulterated Westminster Confession of Faith 23:4^o & 25:6^o ¾ to all of which documents I myself am a Strict Subscriptionist. See my essay The Non-Preteristic Historicalism of John Calvin and the Calvinistic Standards (1993).

Truly, A.D. 2000 is very far from the end of World History! May we then redouble our efforts and labour for the Master from the dawn till setting sun ¾ or rather, till the sunrise of Christ's postmillennial Millennium! See: the 1563 Heidelberg Catechism (cf. QQ. & AA. 80 & 123); the Westminster Larger Catechism Q. & A. 191^c-h; and my own A.D. 2000 essay Always Victorious! ¾ The Earliest Church Not Pre- but Postmillennial.

For, as Isaac Watts declares in his poem drawn from Psalm 72:

"Jesus shall reign where'er the sun,

doth its successive journeys run ¾

His Kingdom stretch from shore to shore,

till moons shall wax and wane no more."

Also Sir Arthur Sullivan exulted ¾ in his own rousing marching song for the Church Militant here on Earth:

"At the sign of triumph, Satan's legions flee.

On then, Christian soldiers, on to victory!"

Let Hell's foundations then indeed quiver! Onward, Christian Soldiers, to victory!

Rev. Prof. Dr. Francis Nigel Lee, Regente Jesu, 2000 Anno Domini.

Revelation 1 December 1

Probably very soon after writing his three Epistles, the Apostle John inscripturated also the last book of the Bible. While himself in exile on the island of Patmos, he wrote the Book of Revelation to encourage persecuted Christians. For tribulation was even then being experienced in the Christian Congregations of Western Asia Minor, on what is now the Western Coast of modern Turkey. It was soon to spread throughout the Roman Empire.

Caesar Nero ruled the Roman Empire from A.D. 54 to 68. It seems quite likely that at least some of the immediate tribulations of Christians referred to in the Book of Revelation, were those suffered as a result of the persecution which broke out after Nero falsely accused the Christians of instigating the burning of Rome in the July of 64 A.D.U #5639

In that case, Revelation would have been written probably just a year or so later ¾ during the year immediately before 66-67. That would have been just three-and-one-half years ¾ or "time [and] two times and half-a-time"(?) ¾ before the A.D. 70 Pagan-Roman destruction of the temple in Jerusalem. Thus very many Theologians ¾ such as Lightfoot, Westcott, Hort, Leon Morris, Vanderwaal, Francis Nigel Lee, Chilton and Gentry.

On the other hand, others think (with Eusebius and Enoch Pond) that the immediate tribulations referred to in the last book of the Bible were those suffered during Caesar Domitian's later persecution of Christians. In that case, Revelation would have been written around A.D. 95f.

Either way, however, it is quite clear that the whole book was written by the Apostle John during the latter half of the first century A.D. It was written about things which even then would "shortly" start coming to pass ¾ things that were then "at hand."

John does not say or mean (preteristically) that all those things would soon finish coming to pass. Nor does he say or mean (futuristically) that almost none of those things would even start to occur until after an alleged and still-future 'rapture.' He says and means (historicalistically) that first some and then all those things would "shortly" start coming to pass.

John was then on the small island of Patmos ¾ during either a first or a second exile (viz. respectively in the sixties or in the nineties of the first century A.D.). It was then that he wrote about things which he had "seen" (viz. Jesus Christ and His Church or "Candlestick" Congregations) ¾ and about things which "are" (viz. the things which were occurring right then, which he rightly called: "now").

Nevertheless, John wrote also about things which would start occurring only after that. Such were Christ's explanations to the aged John of the many mysteries or then-still-hidden events which only others would later see "come to pass" ¾ viz. "the things which shall be hereafter"; the things that would start occurring only later (though as indeed then quite "shortly").

At that time, John was exiled on the isle of Patmos during the persecution of several Congregations of Christ's Church in Western Asia Minor. Possibly, that persecution had already or would also soon spread throughout the entire Pagan-Roman Empire. John wrote the Book of Revelation chiefly concerning "things which must shortly come to pass." And at least some of those "things" were already at least to start being fulfilled ¾ by the time John died before the end of the first century A.D.

First. The Apostle was apparently writing his book to a Presbytery. Just as John had apparently written to a regional Presbytery and to her many daughter Congregations in his Second Epistle ¾ so too here in the Book of Revelation. For here, he was writing to the regional Presbytery of Western Asia Minor ¾ and to her daughter Congregations (of Ephesus and Smyrna and Pergamos and Thyatira and Sardis and Philadelphia and Laodicea).

These Congregations had been or were just beginning to be persecuted (together with the Apostle John himself). The fact that John wrote to the Presbytery of Western Asia Minor has, we believe, many general implications as to which is the truly Biblical system of Church Government. And this also has many implications as to the ability of the Christian Church ¾ when thus properly organized ¾ to withstand persecution.

Second. The events revealed by Jesus Christ and recorded in writing by the Apostle John in the Book of Revelation during the latter part of the first century A.D., relate to "things which must shortly come to pass.... For the time is at hand."

This surely indicates that the predictions about the future as recorded in the Book of Revelation ¾ unlike the predictions recorded by Daniel in his own day ¾ would "shortly come to pass" (or soon start coming to pass). Such were the things which would occur "hereafter" ¾ the things that would start to happen (also in Heaven but especially here on Earth) soon after they were written. For even then ¾ already ¾ "the time" was "at hand."

Yet it must also be remarked that "the time" referred to in this text, is the entire time from John's own day right down to the day of the Final Coming of the Lord Jesus Christ to judge the living and the dead and to consummate the New Heavens on the New Earth. For the Book of Revelation (21:1 to 22:20f) ends with the not-yet-fulfilled statement "Surely, I come quickly!" ¾ to which the Church prayerfully resonds: "Even so, come, Lord Jesus!"

So the entire Book of Revelation has a plasticity as regards its application. Though basically linear in its view of time, perhaps it also has a cyclical repeatability as regards the time(s) of the fulfilment of such of its prophecies as pertain to at least some of its future events. Yet the events mentioned in this Book of Revelation (just like those predicted in the Book of Daniel to which it constantly refers) have, by now (in our own twenty-first century), for the most part long since been fulfilled (or started to be fulfilled) ¾ at least in the primary sense.

For the Book of Revelation was, after all, primarily addressed to the first-century Congregations and servants of Christ well-known to John himself. At least some of the then-future events therein described, were by and large intelligible to those first-century Christians. In fact, the events predicted there were for the most part probably more intelligible to those first-century Christians then ¾ than they are to us today. So, as the Calvinistic Geneva Bible rightly comments, the Book of Revelation "expounds the Old[er] Prophets, and shows what shall come to pass in the New[er] Testament."

This does not in any way make the Book of Revelation useless to us today! For, as "servants" of Jesus Christ like John, we too are included among the ultimate and more remote addressees of that book. The therein-described and by-now already-fulfilled (or already partly-fulfilled) predictions, are always rich in relevant instruction ¾ and sometimes capable of even further and ever-deepening fulfilments.

Yet the Book of Revelation (like the Book of Daniel in which its predictions are grounded) is primarily to be interpreted 'as now already fulfilled' historicalistically. Interpreted 'as now already fulfilled' ¾ because some its predictions did indeed begin to be fulfilled shortly after it was written and in fact even during John's own lifetime. Yet interpreted historicalistically in particular ¾ because yet other of its predictions would begin to be fulfilled only after the death of John, and indeed only during the course of subsequent Church History.

There are certainly a few predictions in the Book of Revelation which have not yet even started to be fulfilled. However, it is only in a very secondary sense that this last book of the Bible should ever be interpreted as 'not-yet-fulfilled' and especially futuristically.

Non-futuristic interpretation, whether partly-preteristic or whether instead wholly-historicalistic, is (we submit) clearly implied in the words of Christ to John in the very first chapter of the Book of Revelation: "Write the things which you have seen ¾ both the things which are [now], and the things which shall be hereafter [or after this time of your writing it down]!"

Third. Christ's "Revelation" to the Apostle John came from the Triune God and to His triunely-baptized people. "Grace and peace be to you, from Him Who is, and Who was, and Who will keep on being; and from the seven Spirits before His throne; and from Jesus Christ Who...has made us kings and priests to God and His Father."

Here we see that God always was, is now, and always shall be. Too, we receive God's grace precisely from the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ and the one-and-only 'sevenfold' Spirit (Who has a 'perfect-seven' omnipotence).

May we too never forget that as baptized believers we too are in living contact with the Triune God Himself! For He will ever sustain us ¾ as His baptismally-branded sheep.

Fourth. The Book of Revelation came to John specifically from the One Who is the central Person within the Trinity. It came from God the Son ¾ from the triumphantly-risen Saviour. It came "from Jesus Christ Who is the faithful Witness and the First-begotten from the dead." For Christ it was Who told John: "I am He Who was dead, but Who keeps on living. And look, I am alive for evermore! Amen. And I have the keys of Hell and of Death."

So too even today. Christ still has the power over Death, and even over Hell itself. What, then, have we who are Christians to fear? Indeed ¾ absolutely nothing!

Fifth. Jesus Christ the Lord of the Book of Revelation is not merely the risen Saviour but ¾ much more importantly ¾ He is also the ascended and ever-reigning King. For the Son of man ascended into Heaven and sat down at the right hand of God the Father in order to mount the throne of the Universe.

He did this as man ¾ in His capacity as human viceroy of the cosmos. And He will keep on ruling in this way, until the very end of His mediatorial reign. Indeed, also after that, He shall continue His reign ¾ in His other capacity as the divine Second Person of the Trinity.

Consequently, ever since His ascension and heavenly session, Christ has been "the Prince of the kings of the Earth." As such, He stands ready to execute repeated judgments over the nations ¾ during the course of human history, as well as ultimately in the Final Judgment at the very end of history.

For in the vision which He gave to John about Himself, "His head and His hair were white as wool ¾ as white as snow. And His eyes were like a flame of fire. And His feet were like fine brass ¾ as if they were burning in a furnace. And His voice was like the sound of many waters. And He had seven stars in His right hand. And a sharp two-edged sword went forth from His mouth. And His countenance was like the sun which keeps on shining in its strength."

Thus, Christ reigns! He reigns now! Hence the Devil is already ¾ in principle ¾ a defeated foe.

Sixth. Consequently, our now-reigning Saviour ¾ "the Prince of the kings of the Earth" ¾ rules not only in Heaven but also on Earth, right here and now. And He keeps on executing that rule over this World in an ever-expansive manner ¾ also through the agency of His Christian children.

For He "has made us kings and priests to God and His Father." Indeed, we too are already under-kings or viceroys in the King-dom of God here and now on this present Earth ¾ under the leadership of our principal Prince ¾ our Saviour Jesus Christ, the Lord of lords and King of kings. For He "has made us kings!"

Moreover, as heirs of that Kingdom, we are in principle already free from the evils of the "kingdoms" of this World ¾ as Christ Himself implied. Accordingly, all temporary persecutions suffered by Christians at the hands of both Jew and Gentile can serve only to make them "more than conquerors" through Jesus Christ the Lord. For He is the Prince of His Kingdom; and every Member of His Church is a Christ-ian "king" under Him.

Seventh. The inspired John strengthened the suffering saints in their temporal and temporary persecutions. He did this, by assuring them of the repeated invisible comings culminating in the visible Final Coming of the Lord Jesus ¾ in triumphal judgments against His enemies, and in covenantal defence of His suffering people.

Previously, Christ had come to His people at Calvary and at His resurrection. Furthermore, even as He had at the beginning of the Book of Revelation only just then come in triumphal defence of John himself on the island of Patmos ¾ so too would He soon come also to strengthen the first-century A.D. Congregations in Western Asia Minor.

He would particularly come and comfort them in the hour of those believers' deaths. Yet if they, the first-century A.D. Congregations, would not repent of their backslidings ¾ that same Jesus would come even to chasten and to correct them. Indeed, He certainly came invisibly yet powerfully ¾ to destroy the wicked Jerusalem in 70 A.D.

But Christ would come also to strengthen His Post-Apostolic Church. He would come again and again in judgment, progressively to destroy the Pagan Roman Empire. He would come to reign in the later post-Constantinian and semi-christianized Holy Roman Empire.

He would come in the power of His Word and His Spirit at the Protestant Reformation, progressively to destroy the Papacy. Indeed, He would come in judgment also against the Papacy even at the French Revolution etc.

Christ comes in the judgments of wars and famines and earthquakes against the wicked rebels of our own generation. He comes in Christian revivals, during our own and subsequent times. And He will ultimately come again ¾ visibly; with the clouds; in power and great glory; namely at a still-future and Final Judgment.

In all of these progressive comings of Christ, our Saviour would and shall progressively be glorified. For He ever goes forth conquering and to conquer all His enemies (either by converting them or by confounding them). "Look, He comes with clouds ¾ and every eye shall see Him, even also they who pierced Him! And all kindreds of the Earth shall wail because of Him. Even so, Amen."

O Christian, let us too then congregate in our Presbyteries! Let us too be edified, prophetically ¾ from the past, in the present and for the future! Let us 'improve' our Triune Baptism (Westminster Larger Catechism (Q./A. 167)! Let us rise up again and again ¾ free from our sins and despite our tribulations ¾ in the power of our risen Saviour Jesus Christ our Lord!

Let us expand our reign here and now on this present Earth as Christ's under-kings! Let us subject ourselves to our everywhere-reigning Prince, Jesus the King of all the Earth ¾ in spite of all persecutions! And let us keep on doing this ¾ until Jesus has christianized this World of ours and all it contains, by His progressive series of conquests!

As He again and again comes in repeated judgments ¾ may every eye see Him! May the eyes also of the Jewish nation that pierced Him, ultimately recognize and worship Him! Indeed, may all the kindreds alias every family here on Earth progressively bewail Him in repentance ¾ as the very nations themselves are slowly but surely turned into His Disciples, even while He progressively converts them (or otherwise confounds them)!

So on, then, Christian soldiers! Onward, to victory!

Revelation 2 December 2

Christ had just revealed Himself to the exiled John, on the tiny isle of Patmos. Next, the risen and reigning Saviour instructed John to write to the persecuted Congregrations in the Presbytery of Western Asia Minor directly to the east of Patmos. The Apostle was to do so, both to encourage and to correct them ¾ before Christ Himself would "come" and deal with them during that period of history.

In and through those messages to the Congregations of Western Asia Minor during the first century A.D., Jesus encourages and corrects His Church Universal down through all subsequent ages too. For these messages refer also to the similar problems and needs of the Lord's Church in all times.

Yet the (seven) messages to the (seven) Congregations ¾ unlike most of the rest of the Book of Revelation ¾ are not to be construed as a future chronology of successive ages of the Christian Church. For all seven messages were addressed to specific Congregations of Christ's Church during the same apostolic age. Nevertheless, all seven messages are applicable also to the Church of the twenty-first century today ¾ though some of the messages are more relevant to certain modern Congregations than they are to others.

First. Christ told John to write to the "Angel" of His Congregation in Ephesus. That Angel or Preacher was to remind his flock that its Members were safely being preserved in the omnipotent hand of the divine Lord of the Church.

Said the Lord Jesus to the Apostle John: "Unto the Angel of the Church in Ephesus, write: 'These things says He Who keeps on holding the seven stars in His right hand; Who keeps on walking in the middle of the seven-pronged golden Candlestick.'" That "Angel" or "Star" ¾ that Messenger in Ephesus ¾ was thereby assured that also he himself was secure in the right hand of the Lord.

Perhaps that "Angel" of the Congregation in Ephesus was a guardian spirit ¾ a bodyless angelic being appointed by God to take care of His flock in that place. More probably that "Angel" or Messenger represents instead ¾ the Guardian Pastor or Preaching Elder appointed by Christ to be a shining "Star" to that Congregation. Or possibly that "Angel" represents both an angelic 'guardian spirit' as well as Christ's Preacher in Ephesus ultimately collaborating with one another (even if that was unbeknown to the Preacher).

At any rate ¾ it is a great comfort for Christians and Preachers to know that the Congregations of Christ are under the protection of the reigning Lord Jesus, and safely in His loving hand. Indeed, nobody shall ever be able to wrest His children away from His tender loving care.

Second. Christ praised the Christian dedication of His Congregation in Ephesus. "I know your works, and your labours, and your patience ¾ and how you cannot bear those who are evil. And you have tested those who say they are 'Apostles' but are not ¾ and have found them to be liars. And you have borne; and have had patience; and have laboured for My Name's sake; and have not fainted."

The Members of the Congregation had worked and laboured in terms of the Dominion Charter. They had endured opposition, patiently. They had rooted out false-apostles and all antinomian or law-breaking Nicolaitans. Indeed, they had started out by loving both the Lord pre-eminently as well as one another corporately. May we too follow their example!

Third. Christ rebuked and encouraged the Ephesian Christians to acknowledge the subsequent cooling off of their love. For He wanted them to overcome all hindrances in, and oppositions to, their Christian lives.

Said Jesus to His Church in Ephesus: "I have something against you ¾ because you have left your first love.... Repent, and do the first works ¾ or else I will come to you quickly, and will remove your Candlestick.... He who has an ear, let him hear what the Spirit keeps on saying to the Churches: 'To him who overcomes, I will give to eat of the tree of life which is in the middle of the paradise of God.'"

May this be also our present resolution! Indeed, may we too receive the same ultimate reward!

Fourth. Christ encouraged the impoverished Congregation of Smyrna. He told her Members that they were actually rich ¾ and would soon receive crowns of life. They were, indeed, then being persecuted ¾ particularly by such Judaists as were then blaspheming them. Yet only some of the Christians in Smyrna were then being imprisoned by 'devilish' Pagan Rome (especially after Nero cohabited with the Judaist Poppaea). But even then, the Christians' souls were still free ¾ and their tribulation was but "ten days" short.

This tribulation of "ten days" might indeed last for ten years. Thus: Walter Brute; the Dordt Dutch Bible; Adam Clarke; and many others. But it would soon be over. Because it clearly implies ¾ as the Geneva Bible comments ¾ that "there shall be comfort and release."

Yes, even those who had been faithful unto death during that persecution, immediately entered the next life blissfully. For those who have received the second birth ¾ shall never be harmed by the Gehenna of the second death.

Fifth. Christ encouraged the Congregation of Pergamos. This Church included backslidden Members who had, like Balaam, compromised their testimony and fallen into Nicolaitan alias antinomian idolatry and fornication. If they did not soon repent, Christ would come quickly ¾ to punish those backsliders with severe temporal judgments.

But the rest of the Members of the Congregation in Pergamos had remained faithful ¾ even while surrounded by a sea of Satanic iniquity, and even when unflinchingly persecuted during the days of past tribulation. For those Members had overcome Satan. And "to him who overcomes," said Jesus, "I will give to eat of the hidden manna, and will give him a white stone ¾ and on the stone a 'new name' written which no man knows except he who receives it."

May we too never flinch under persecution! And may we too receive the heavenly manna, even today! For, as the Geneva Bible comments, the 'white stone' was "given to them that had gotten any victory or prize in sign of honour." And "the new name also signifies renown and honour."

Sixth. Christ gave similar encouragement to His Church's Congregation in Thyatira. At first, He patiently gave the Congregation's immoral and wicked false-prophetess Jezebel a sufficient space of time to repent. But after the expiry of that time, He now announced that He would cast her and her few Satanic co-adulterers into "great tribulation." In fact, He would even kill her children ¾ if she would not be converted.

The rest of the Members in the Congregation at Thyatira, however ¾ the "many" who apparently constituted the vast majority of the Congregation's Members, would not be punished like the "few" (or "them") who had lapsed into immorality and idolatry. To the contrary. The rest of the Congregation ¾ whose last works were even better than their first, and whose love and service and faith and patience were highly commended by the Saviour ¾ would not be exposed to any further burdens or trials of patience.

For seventh. The good-living majority of the Congregation in Thyatira ¾ like their Lydia of old ¾ would overcome all opposition and keep on doing Christian works "unto the end." And they would ultimately ¾ that is, in later Church History ¾ be "given power over the nations" in Christ's progressively-christianizing World.

For "he [who overcomes] shall rule them [the nations] with an iron rod" ¾ by shepherding and feeding them with his shepherd's staff. "Like the vessels of a potter, they [those of the nations who do not repent] shall be broken into pieces ¾ as I received from My Father. And I will give to him [who overcomes] the morning star."

True as it is that this promise will fully be realized only after the Final Judgment on the New Earth yet to come ¾ it is also apparent that it will in large measure first be realized prior to that time. For it will first be realized in this present World here and now ¾ as Christianity extends its victorious advance across the globe, culminating in the christianization of all nations.

O Christian, let us too listen to what the Holy Spirit of God says to the Churches! Let us too work to subdue the Earth and to win all of its inhabitants to the glory of Christ!

Let us enrich our impoverished spirits! Let us also discipline our few backsliders!

Let us encourage, too, our industrious Christians! And let us advance on a broad front throughout the World ¾ until all nations bow down under the rod of the Good Shepherd Jesus Christ, and until the kingdoms of this World have in practice too become the Kingdom of our Lord and of His Christ and He shall keep on reigning and keep on expanding that reign for ever and ever!

So on, then, Christian soldiers! Onward, to victory!

Revelation 3:1-13 December 3

In his mind's eye, John had already shifted his prophetic gaze up along the coast of Western Asia Minor from the South to the North. After so doing, he next addressed the Congregations of Ephesus and Smyrna and Pergamos.

Then, after moving his mind's eye further "in the Spirit" due east to Thyatira, the Apostle (as Jesus' agent and spokesman) next extended his range more and more inland ¾ in a south-easterly direction. For he next went on ("in the Spirit") to address the inland Congregations of Sardis and Philadelphia and Laodicea.

First. His prophetic gaze fell upon the Congregation in Sardis. That part of His Church had apparently "escaped" the persecutions which some of the other Congregations had suffered. Yet this was a mixed blessing.

For persecutions tend to deepen the faithfulness of Christ's Church. And some in the apparently 'unpersecuted' Congregation of Sardis, had become "dead." They, in particular, needed to be revived ¾ and perhaps even through persecution.

Yet Christ did not hastily reject His Church. Rather did He enjoin her to be watchful, and to strengthen those that remained as a 'remnant' which was ready to die.

Said Christ, "I have not found your works perfect before God. Remember therefore how you have received and heard.... Keep on holding fast ¾ and repent!" For soon, Christ Himself would come and visit that Congregation ¾ in temporal judgment.

May we too not reject our 'frozen' (though perhaps still 'chosen') brethren! But may we instead lovingly warn them ¾ of their impending judgment!

As the Geneva Bible here comments: "Be awake!" That means, to some: "Stay awake!" ¾ and to others: "Wake up!"

Second. Not merely was the Congregation at Sardis 'strengthenable.' It also had a solid believing core ¾ on the basis of which, true revival could indeed be promoted.

Said Jesus to that Congregation: "You do have a few names even in Sardis who have not defiled their garments. And they shall walk with Me, in white. For they are worthy. He who overcomes, the same shall be clothed in white raiment. And I will not blot out his name from the book of life. But I will confess his name before My Father, and before His angels."

He Who says these things, speaks efficacious words. For "He possesses the seven Spirits of God ¾ and the seven stars."

Yes, Jesus Who says these things possesses the fullness of the sevenfold Holy Spirit. Indeed, He also possesses each of the seven star-like and luminous because Spirit-filled Angels or Messengers who lead His work in the Congregations of His Presbytery. Consequently, as pointed out by Martin Luther in his great hymn A mighty fortress is our God, even today ¾ because we do indeed have 'the right Man on our side,' namely 'Christ Jesus' ¾ 'He must win the battle!'

Third. It is, however, especially Christ's message to the Congregation in Philadelphia that is remarkable in the encouragement it offers. The Philadelphian Christians had, like those in Smyrna, apparently been persecuted by the Pagan Romans at the instigation of influential local Judaists. The Philadelphian Christians were, moreover ¾ even as John was then writing to them ¾ on the verge of again being intimidated in a new wave of persecution that was then about to sweep through the whole World of the Roman Empire.

Judaists had persecuted the Christians from even before the death of the Lord Jesus Christ. But periodic Roman persecutions of Christians ¾ initially incited once again by Judaists ¾ broke loose only in the time of Emperor Claudius (A.D. 41-54). Yet such persecutions first became really severe only during the time of Emperor Nero (A.D. 54-64f) and his Judaistic wife Poppaea.

Such Roman persecutions of Christians once again recurred, intermittently, from the reign of Domitian (A.D. 81-96) right down to that of Marcus Aurelius (161-180 A.D.). Yet John, at Christ's own dictation, assured the Philadelphian Christians that they would (by the grace of God) stand fast in their new hour of persecution ¾ even as they had done before. "Because you have kept the Word of My patience," said Jesus, "I also will keep you during the hour of testing which shall come upon all the World ¾ to test those who dwell upon the Earth."

Fourth. Even their worst persecutors would be converted ¾ as a result of the Philadelphian Christians' stalwart testimony. For even since Calvary, part of the then-apostate and then-broken-off Jewish nation had been trickling back into the true Christian Church (and still continues to so do).

Indeed, as a result of the mighty missionary outreach of the Church even among Judaists ¾ the latter too were also then and are even now more and more being converted and enabled to see that not the Judaists but the Christians (both Hebrew Christians and Gentile Christians) are the true Zion. For Jesus Christ the Deliverer comes out also to the Judaists, from the Christian Church alias His True Zion, in her sustained missionary work-of-mercy. By means of this ¾ Christ Himself turns and shall keep on turning ungodliness away from Jacob (alias ethnic Israel).

So, then, even the Jews shall come into the Christian Church ¾ and ultimately, like a flood! And in that way, "all Israel shall be saved." Then shall those Newer Testament enemies of the Christians Gospel themselves be converted to the true religion of Biblical Christianity.

The Older Testament itself is full of predictions of such an influx into the Newer Testament Christian Church. Here are but two.

"The sons also of those that afflict you, shall come to you ¾ bending. And all those who despised you, shall bow themselves down ¾ at the soles of your feet. And they shall call you 'The City of the Lord' ¾ 'The Zion of the Holy One of Israel.'" That is why Augustine rightly called the Christian Church: 'The City of God.'

Once again: "Kings shall be your nursing-fathers, and their queens [shall become] your nursing-mothers. They [too, with you,] shall bow down...with their face toward the ground and lick up the dust at your feet."

As Jesus Himself put it, in His Book of Revelation: "Look, I will make them of the synagogue of Satan who say they are Jews yet are not but do lie ¾ look, I will make them to come and worship [God] in front of your feet." Indeed, I will get them there to "acknowledge that I have loved you!"

This means, as the Geneva Bible comments, that the Triune God will humble the Judaists before the Christians. It suggests God here says to His Church anent the Judaists: "I will cause them, in your sight, to humble themselves ¾ and to give due honour to God and to His Son Christ."

Meantime, fifth, the expansion of Christ's Kingdom here on Earth would continue ¾ despite all resistance, be it from Barbarian or from Jew or from Greek or from Roman. For Christ lives, and always will live, in His Church Militant ¾ and He has the key of David. Indeed, He, the risen Saviour ¾ wielding the keys even of Hell and Death ¾ Himself expands His Church and promotes her mission. For "He opens so that no man [can] shut; and He shuts, so that no man [can] open." He sets His Church before "an open door ¾ and no man can shut it."

Christ's Church herself indeed has little strength. But Christ's Own strength is revealed in His Church's weakness. She shall not deny His Name ¾ for she knows that the Name of Jehovah-Jesus is strong indeed. Thus His Church can do all things, through Christ Who strengthens her.

Sixth. The 'key of David' ¾ comments the Geneva Bible ¾ "signifies that Christ has all the power over the House of David, which is the Church." Consequently, "He may receive...whom He will." And the 'open door' set before the Church, adds the Geneva Bible, "is to advance the Kingdom of God."

Whenever she stands firm and immovable for Him ¾ Christ comes quickly to revive and to expand His Church. Promises Jesus: "Look, I come quickly! Keep on holding fast to that which you have, so that nobody take your crown! Him who overcomes, I will make a pillar in the Temple of My God, and he shall not go away from it any more."

Christians shall overcome the World. For they are not imminently removed from it; but established as pillars of His Church Militant, in it. Consequently, the Members of the Temple of God alias the Church Militant are here and now already crowned as kings (in principle). And all who overcome the forces of the spirit of antichrist are made into strong pillars of that Church Militant ¾ inflexible and immovable.

Last. Christ will ultimately come visibly, at His Final Judgment ¾ to crown us in practice too. Then will He incorporate us into the Heavenly City on the New Earth ¾ for ever. Then His Name shall be most prominent ¾ 'indelibly' written upon our baptized foreheads.

"Look," says Jesus, "I come quickly! Keep on holding fast to that which you have, so that nobody take your crown! Him who overcomes, I will make a pillar in the Temple of My God, and he shall not go away from it any more. And I will write upon him the Name of My God, and the name of the City of My God which is 'New Jerusalem' (which comes down out of Heaven from My God). And I will write upon him My new Name."

As the Geneva Bible here comments, it is as if God the Spirit here says to God the Son as regards God the Father: "Let no man pluck them away whom You have won to God! For they are Your crown."

Indeed, as Hengstenberg comments: "To be a conqueror and to be a Christian, is the same thing." So therefore, "he who has an ear ¾ let him hear what the Spirit keeps on saying to the Churches!"

O Christian, let us too listen to what the Spirit keep on saying to the Churches! Let us not fearfully seek to 'escape' persecution! But let us rather 'strengthen' one another!

Let us stand firm, through all tribulation ¾ and attempt to convert even our persecutors! Let us march out, through uncloseable missionary doors ¾ uncloseable, because Christ has opened them! And let us experience His comings in revivals and expansions of His Church ¾ till His Kingdom is complete, when we ourselves will keep on standing within His Church or Temple: immovable for ever!

So on, then, Christian soldiers! Onward, to victory!

Christ delivered His messages (via the Apostle John) to the first six of His Congregations in the Presbytery of Western Asia Minor. Then our reigning King next addressed Himself to the last Congregation in that Presbytery. This was the lukewarm congregation of Laodicea ¾ the sister Church of the Congregation in Colosse.

First. We need to see that Laodicea had previously heard all the counsel of God ¾ from the Apostle Paul. For she had been told, just like her Sister Church in Colosse, that Christ was the Creator and the Maintainer and the Reconciler of all things in Heaven and Earth.

She had also been informed that in Christ all the treasures of wisdom and knowledge had been stored up. She had heard that 'Christ in you, the Hope of glory' ¾ is the riches of the glory of the mystery (alias the manifestation of what had not been known) among the Gentiles who believe in Him.

And now, Laodicea was again being reminded (by John) that Christ was the "Amen, the faithful and true Witness, the Beginning of God's creation," the One Who was and is the Abolute Originator. For Laodicea was prompted to remember that Christ is the One Who began creation ¾ the One Who is The Beginning alias The Beginner of creation. As the Geneva Bible comments, it is Christ "from Whom all creatures have their beginning."

Second. Sadly, the Church in Laodicea had cooled off toward Christ! So He, through John, reminded her how she had lost a very great deal of her true riches. And Christ, through John, exhorted her to recover them. For it is spiritual riches ¾ and not the material riches they were then indeed continuing to acquire ¾ that represent true wealth.

Said Jesus to Laodicea: "Because you say, 'I am rich and have increased with goods and don't need anything' ¾ but do not acknowledge that you are wretched and miserable and poor and blind and naked ¾ I counsel you to buy from Me gold tested in the fire, so that you may become rich; and white raiment, so that you may become clothed and so that the shame of your nakedness might not become apparent; and anoint yourself with eye salve, so that you may see!"

May we today learn from the Laodiceans' mistakes! May we not forget our True Riches ¾ the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit!

Third. Christ promised to "rebuke and chasten" His Church ¾ simply because He loved her. Said He: "I know your works, that you are neither cold nor hot. I would that you were cold or hot! So then, because you are luke-warm, and neither cold nor hot ¾ I will spit you out of My mouth.... I rebuke and chasten as many as I love. Therefore, be zealous ¾ and repent!"

May we too understand that even today, lukewarm Churches can still be revived from their Laodicean indifference! And may we also ever regard Christ's chastenings as tokens of His love ¾ designed to restore us from our wayward backslidings; designed to restore us once again to enjoy His tender care!

"For the Lord chastens those whom He loves ¾ and He scourges every son whom He receives." As the Geneva Bible comments: "Nothing more displeases God, than indifference and coldness in religion.... Therefore He will spit out such as are not zealous and fervent."

Fourth. The quantitative magnitude of Christ's love, is hardly less than the qualitative. For it is not just a few that He chastises, but a great number. Indeed, He says: "I rebuke and chasten as many as I love."

Moreover, He adds: "If any man hears My voice, and opens the door ¾ I will come in unto him, and will feast with him." The invitation comes to men indiscriminately. All who get open the door, will be received by Jesus.

Fifth. It should not be imagined, however, that those who do so open ¾ do so of their 'own free will,' as it were. For the people here under discussion ¾ are not at all unregenerate Heathen. Rather are they somewhat-backslidden (and therefore previously-regenerated) Members of the Christian Church in Laodicea. They are people whose wills had previously been "free-d" ¾ freed by the Sovereign Lord Himself.

Moreover, even here in their later restoration from lapses into sin, Christ is again sovereign. He says: "Look, I am standing at the door and [I am] knocking! If any man hears My voice and opens the door ¾ I will come in unto him, and I will feast with him; and [only then] he with Me." Just as right after man's fall in the garden of Eden, so too here again it is not man that comes to God ¾ but God Who comes to man.

It is Christ Who stands at the door ¾ not the sinner. It is Christ Who knocks ¾ not the sinner. It is the voice of Christ and not that of the sinner which is heard.

It is not the sinner himself but it is Jesus Christ Who from the outside thrusts His hand through the small hole toward the edge of the middle of this old-fashioned door. Indeed, it is He Who then moves the hand of the sinner to lift up the latch on the inside of the door ¾ and thus to participate in Christ's own opening of the door. And it is Christ Who then first feasts with the sinner ¾ not vice-versa.

Sixth. Christ promises that those who overcome in His Name ¾ will indeed reign with Him for evermore. He says: "To him who overcomes, I will grant to sit with Me on My throne ¾ even as I too overcame, and have sat down with My Father on His throne. He who has an ear, let him hear what the Spirit keeps on saying to the Churches!"

Now that 'co-rule' of the Christians enthroned together with Christ on His royal seat, starts in this life ¾ here and now. And it continues, unloseably, right down also to the next life ¾ yes, for everlasting! For, as the Geneva Bible observes, to sit with Christ on His throne is to be installed" in what He Himself calls "My royal seat ¾ and to be partaker of My heavenly joys."

O Christian, let us too listen to what the Spirit keeps on saying to the Churches ¾ even today! May we too recognize Jesus as the Creator; as the Maintainer; as the Reconciler of all things in Heaven and Earth; and as the Beginner of the whole creation!

May we enrich ourselves in Him in Whom all the treasures of wisdom and knowledge are stored up! May we ever turn closer to Him Who loves us ¾ and Who proves that love by constantly chastening us! May we realize that He loves many, and will feast with all who hearken to His persuasive voice! And may we thus rule and reign with Him, in all that we do ¾ both in this life and the next!

So on, then, Christian soldiers! Onward, to victory!

Revelation 4 December 5

John recorded Christ's messages to the seven Congregations in the Presbytery of Western Asia Minor here on Earth. But next, the Apostle was given a vision of Heaven itself ¾ of Heaven above.

"After this" (or after those things), wrote John, "I looked. And see, a door in Heaven was opened! Then the first voice which I heard was as it were that of a trumpet which kept on talking to me. It said: 'Come up here ¾ and I will show you the things which must occur hereafter!'" This latter phrase ¾ "the things which must occur hereafter" ¾ means those things which were still to happen after the occurrence of the previous things Christ had just shown to John. For many new temporal rewards and even chastisements were still to come, from Heaven ¾ to men here on Earth, down through all the subsequent centuries, and before the Final Judgment.

The Lord had just shown His Apostle the condition of His Church in the Presbytery of Western Asia Minor here on Earth during the Apostle's own day. And now, the trumpet-voiced Son of man went on to show His same servant John a heavenly vision of the major events which would next start occurring ¾ by and large consecutively ¾ here on this present Earth, after His administration of temporal rewards or chastisements to the Congregations of His first-century Presbytery of Western Asia Minor.

Before describing that new series of rewards and chastisements which were as then yet to come right here on Earth ¾ Jesus first showed John His present throne in Heaven. For it was in Heaven that the book with the seven seals of then-future Church History would be opened up ¾ from which book its contents would then be brought to pass on Earth.

Here, the Geneva Bible makes a very valuable comment. It explains that first, "before" the Apostle would "make mention of the great afflictions of the Church, he sets forth the majesty of God." For by His "will, wisdom and providence all things are created and governed ¾ to teach us patience."

Now in this vision of Heaven, He Whom John saw sitting on the heavenly throne was and is the Triune God Himself. He was like a jasper and a rainbow and a sardius-stone to look upon. For He Who sat upon the throne, is the luminous Thrice-Holy Lord God Almighty ¾ alias the Father-Son-Spirit Who always was and Who is and Who shall keep on being.

From the midst of the throne, declared John, there proceeded lightnings and thunderings and voices ¾ from the sevenfold-exalted and sevenfold-blessed God the Father. In the middle of the throne stood God the Son, alias the seven-horned Lamb or the sevenfold-anointed Lord Jesus Christ. And in front of the throne was God the Spirit, Who shone forth like seven lamps of fire ¾ as the sevenfold Spirit of God.

That Spirit Himself acts like the sevenfold eyes of Christ the Lamb. Those searching eyes are like flames of fire. Indeed, John had already written how they searched out the reins and the hearts of the Members of the seven Congregations in the seven-pronged Candlestick ¾ the Western Asia Minor Presbytery in the Church of the living God.

Now this glorious and sevenfold or perfect Triune Being, said John, is completely independent of all the many created existences within the Universe which He Himself created. Thus, His heavenly creatures sing to Him without ceasing ('seven days a week' as it were): "Holy, holy holy; Lord God Almighty; Who was, and Who is, and Who shall keep on being!"

Second, out of the throne proceeds a triune creative activity ¾ lightnings and thunderings and voices. Here we catch a glimpse of the re-splendent external work of the Triune Jehovah ¾ His work in creation, in providence, in communication, in salvation, in judgment, and in consummation. May we too then never forget the glory of the Lord with Whom we have to do!

As the Geneva Bible comments: "From the throne of the Father and the Son proceeds the Holy Ghost Who, all having but one throne, declare the unity of the Godhead. The Holy Ghost is like lightning to us who believe, and like a fearful thunder to the disobedient."

Third. "Before the throne, there was a sea of glass like crystal. And in the midst of the throne and round about the throne, were four living creatures full of eyes in front and behind. The first living creature was like a lion; and the second living creature like a calf; and the third living creature had a face like that of a man; and the fourth living creature was like a flying eagle....

"The four living creatures, each of them, had six wings around it. And they were full of eyes within. And they do not rest day and night. They keep on saying: 'Holy, holy, holy; Lord God Almighty; Who was, and Who is, and Who keeps on being!'"

Now as to their basic description and activities, these four "living creatures" or zooa ¾ each said to have six wings ¾ on the one hand seem to correspond to the sub-sevenfold (and hence sub-divine) six-winged seraphs in a vision previously shown to Isaiah. As such, the four living creatures in the Book of Revelation might well be Angels sent out by Jehovah to serve Him for the sake of the entire Universe.

If Angels ¾ these four living creatures in the Book of Revelation would perhaps minister also to the wild animals as well as to the tame animals of the land and of the air etc. Yet they minister too especially for the sake of man ¾ who alone is the crown of the cosmos.

On the other hand, however, these four "living creatures" are clearly distinguished from the Angels ¾ in the next chapter. That fact would rather seem to indicate that the four zooa are perhaps the sum total of all earthly living beings or creatures redeemed right here by the blood of the Lamb.

Be that as it may. Would that we too might serve the Lord with the same alacrity as do both the good Angels and the sub-human creatures! And would that we too might sing the "thrice-holy' Trishagion with the same dedication as do the four zooa!

As Hengstenberg points out, "the object" of the description of the four zooa round the throne of Jehovah "was to impart consolation in the presence of a seemingly omnipotent World" alias mundane order. Indeed, the object is also to "pledge the certainty of victory being gained over it" by Christ ¾ and His Church.

Fourth. The saved Church of Jesus Christ is, in fact, required to serve Jehovah and to sing to His praise with the same dedication as do both all unfallen angelic beings and all non-angelic sub-human creatures. For "round about the throne, were twenty-four seats. And upon the seats, I saw twenty-four Elders sitting, clothed in white raiment. And they had on their heads crowns of gold."

These Elders, just like the good Angels, surround the throne of Jehovah. But unlike those Angels, they are crowned and seated on thrones. This means that they rule and reign with Jehovah Himself ¾ albeit only subserviently as viceroys-under-God.

Now these twenty-four Elders in Heaven, like all other Elders here and now on Earth, represent the whole people of God. Thus they reflect twice the product of the divine number three multiplied by the creation number four. They also suggest the six-fold number of the wings of the zooa, multiplied by the four-fold number of those living creatures themselves.

But the twenty-four Elders symbolize especially the sum total of the Older Testament Church built upon the foundation of the twelve Patriarchs of Israel and the Newer Testament Church built upon the foundation of the twelve Apostles ¾ with Jesus Christ Himself being the Chief Cornerstone of His entire Older-and-Newer-Testament Church-of-all-ages.

Fifth. The Elders, and all the Members of the Church-of-all-ages they represent ¾ because they themselves are both creatures and sinners ¾ do not have the intrinsic right to rule in their own right, themselves. They only have that God-given privilege graciously donated to them ¾ by virtue of their creation and redemption through the mercies of the sovereign Lord. For it is Christ alone Who has clothed them in white raiment. And it is He alone Who has invested them with their crowns of gold.

May we too never forget that we ourselves are but sinners saved by the grace of God! For everything we possess, has been given to us merely through the mercies of the Triune God in Whom we live and move and have our very existence.

Sixth. The heavenly Elders never forget this. They know that their whole lives ¾ both now in Heaven and for ever thereafter on the New Earth yet to come ¾ are to be dedicated to the Triune God alone: from Whom they have received all things; through Whom they are right now enjoying all things; and unto Whom they shall bring all of the joyous praise of their lives. For each and every time (seven "days" a week without ceasing) "when those living creatures give glory and honour and thanks to Him Who sat on the throne Who keeps on living for ever and ever ¾ the twenty-four Elders fall down before Him Who sat on the throne."

There they "worship Him Who keeps on living for ever and ever, and cast their crowns before the throne, saying: 'You are worthy, O Lord, to receive glory and honour and power. For You have created all things. And it is through Your will [for Your pleasure] that they are and were created.'"

Thus the whole Church, represented by those twenty-four Elders, is to take pleasure in God's creation of all things ¾ and also in their own createdness. Indeed, as the Geneva Bible rightly comments: "We are hereby taught to give glory to God in all His works."

O Christian, may we here on Earth ¾ just like the inhabitants of Heaven above ¾ understand something of the indescribable splendour of God Himself! May we realize that He is totally sovereign over the entire Universe ¾ in creation, providence, communication, redemption, judgment, and consummation!

May we serve our Triune God with the same alacrity as do the unfallen angels. But unlike those Angels, may we rule with Him here and now on Earth; even more so in Heaven hereafter; and still more so after the Final Judgment on the New Earth yet to come!

Above all, may we realize with the heavenly Elders that our Lord is indeed worthy to receive all the glory and honour and power of our lives ¾ even now! For He has created all things for His Own pleasure. Indeed, our own greatest pleasure should be found in recognizing this ¾ and in casting down our own crowns and kingship over all the Universe, before His regal throne.

May we do this, and continue to do this ¾ until God, through the obedient agency of His earthly Church ¾ has reduced all His enemies as a footstool under His feet!

So on, then, Christian soldiers! Onward, to victory!

Revelation 5 December 6

Christ was showing John the expectant Church Triumphant, in Heaven above. Then the Lord Jesus next went on to show the Apostle the central role which He Himself had played and keeps on playing in the salvation of the entire elect Universe after His ascension and heavenly session. For He Himself even now promotes the further development of the whole cosmos not just there and now in Heaven, but also here and now on Earth.

First. John, in his heavenly vision, saw a scroll in the right hand of Jehovah. "Then I saw in the right hand of Him Who sat on the throne, a book written on the inside and on the outside ¾ sealed with seven seals."

As will later appear, that very bookroll or scroll is not only Christ's blood-bought title deed to His two-sided redeemed creation (both the heavenly "inside" and the earthly "outside"). But it is also the record of the major religious events of all future history of that "inside" and that "outside" of the Universe. For as the scroll is later unrolled, it also deals with the unfolding of the future development of the plan of redemption.

As such, it is Christ's 'title deed' to all cosmic development. For, as the Geneva Bible observes, this bookroll or scroll "signifies all the counsels and judgments of God which are known only to Christ."

Now the scroll was secured with seven seals. These seven seals not only authenticate the veracity but they especially symbolize the humanly-unknown contents of the scroll.

Nobody was able to pry open the seals of the scroll, or even to comprehend its sealed contents. Nobody ¾ except the seven-horned Lamb with the sevenfold sharp-sighted eyes (and those privileged ones to whom He might be pleased to disclose such matters).

For the contents of the sealed bookroll can be understood only by Christ ¾ and by those with whom He would share it. As the Geneva Bible rightly comments, the 'seven eyes' of the Lamb signify "the fullness of the Spirit Which Christ poured [out] upon all" ¾ upon all His elect.

Now John himself declared: "I saw a strong Angel proclaiming with a loud voice: 'Who is worthy to open the book and to loosen its seals?' And no man in Heaven, nor on Earth, neither under the Earth, was able to open the book neither to look into it. Then I wept much, because no man was found worthy to open and to read the book, neither to look into it."

Yet when the worthy Jesus opened the seals of the bookroll ¾ "thousands of thousands" praised God. Why? Because they saw that Jesus had redeemed them "from every kindred [or family] and tongue and people and nation."

Second. One of the heavenly Elders, however, pointed out to John that the Lord Jesus Christ had triumphed victoriously, to open the scroll. Wrote the Apostle: "Then one of the Elders says to me: 'Do not weep! Look, the Lion of the tribe of Juda, the Root of David, has prevailed to open the book and to loosen its seven seals!'"

Now Christ's opening of the scroll depended upon His first being slaughtered for the sins of the World. Yet Christ's slaughter was fore-ordained even before the foundation of the Universe.

So the tense used in the phrase "He has prevailed" ¾ is 'past continuous.' Thus it refers not only to Calvary, which was already past history at the time John was writing the Book of Revelation. It refers also to the continuous-present certainty that Christ will keep on prevailing.

For all of this was fore-ordained ever since the beginning of the World ¾ and, in time, ever since the Protevangelium or 'First Gospel Promise' was given to fallen mankind in the garden of Eden. Thus Jehovah's guarantee stretches from all eternity past and unto all eternity future.

Third. One of the Elders in the heavenly vision accordingly gave John a 'playback.' And this reminded the Apostle of that already-past and already-completed redemption which the Lamb had effected when He "prevailed" (past tense) to open the book with the seven seals.

Wrote John: "Then I beheld. And look! In the midst of the throne and of the four living creatures and in the midst of the Elders, stood a Lamb as if He had been slain ¾ having seven horns and seven eyes, which are the seven Spirits [alias the seven-fold Holy Spirit] of God, sent forth into all the Earth. And He [the Lamb] came and took the book out of the right hand of Him Who sat upon the throne.

"Now when He had taken the book, the four living creatures [or zooa] and the twenty-four Elders fell down before the Lamb.... Then they sang a new song, saying: 'You are worthy to take the book, and to open its seals! For You were slain, and have redeemed us ['the saints'] unto God, by Your blood, from every kindred [or family] and tongue and people and nation!'"

This is why John himself, when he started to inscripturate the Book of Revelation, dedicated it "to Him Who loved us and washed us from our sins in His own blood and has made us kings and priests to God!" For it was precisely when Christ actually "took the book" or acquired title of the scroll, by shedding His precious blood ¾ that the legal price for the redemption of His Church was officially paid.

So, even at that time of His death and resurrection and ascension and heavenly session, the entire Universe then and there acknowledged the Son of man Jesus Christ's acquisition of the title deed of the cosmos. For this acknowledgment was then made by representations of both the Church Militant here on Earth as well as of the Church Expectant in Heaven.

The Calvinistic Geneva Bible of John Knox and Dr. Whittingham here makes an appropriate comment. It says: "Our Saviour Jesus has redeemed His Church by His bloodshedding, and gathered it from all nations."

Fourth. John next describes the acknowledgment of those saving events specifically by the Church Triumphant (alias the Church in Heaven). He describes how in his vision he saw and heard the heavenly saints acknowledging the death of the Lamb on Calvary, and His subsequent resurrection from the dead and His arrival in Heaven on the clouds at His subsequent ascension and heavenly session ¾ in fulfilment of Daniel's prediction.

John was now looking at the 'playback' of these saving events ¾ in his own God-given vision several decades after their occurrence. Thus John was then enabled to see how the Older Testament saints in Heaven had reacted, when our Saviour died and rose again and arrived in Heaven and sat down on the throne of the Universe as the Son of man.

John was enabled also to see how the Newer Testament saints in Heaven react to these matters ¾ together with the Older Testament saints with them there. For the Older and the Newer Testament saints in glory both constitute the one and only Church-in-Heaven of our Lord Jesus Christ, represented by the "twenty-four Elders" (or the twelve Patriarchs and the twelve Apostles).

Indeed, John saw how Christ the Lamb "came and took the book out of the right hand of Him Who sat upon the thone. And when He had taken the book, the four living creatures and the twenty-four Elders fell down before the Lamb.... And they sang a new song, saying: 'You are worthy to take the book and to open its seals! For You were slain, and have redeemed us [or 'them'] unto God ¾ by Your blood!"

Evidently, the echo of the death and resurrection of Christ here on Earth ¾ then resounded throughout the cosmos and even into Heaven itself. And that echo was re-echoed back to Earth again ¾ at Christ's arrival in Heaven after His ascension. For the heavenly-enthroned Christ then poured out His Holy Spirit on Pentecost Sunday ¾ when the seven-fold Holy Ghost alias "the seven Spirits of God [were] sent forth into all the Earth" to inspire His earthly Church to start to go and gather Christ's elect from every nation.

Fifth. Calvary has given benefits ¾ and is still able to benefit ¾ both man and zooa (alias other 'living creatures'). It profits them both then (at Calvary) ¾ and now (after Calvary). It benefitted them both in Heaven and on Earth. For after Christ's ascension and arrival in Heaven, "He came and took the book out of the right hand of Him Who sat upon the throne."

Then, "the four living creatures and the twenty-four Elders fell down before the Lamb.... And they sang a new song, saying: 'You...have redeemed us'" ¾ namely the dead saints in Heaven. This can also equally appropriately be translated: 'You...have redeemed them'" ¾ namely the living saints still on Earth.

For "You...have redeemed us [or 'them'] unto God by Your blood from every kindred [or family] and tongue and people and nation" ¾ a worldwide redemption. "And You...have made us" in Heaven and "them" still on Earth to be "kings and priests to our God. Indeed, we" in Heaven as well as the believers who are still on Earth ¾ "shall reign on the Earth!"

Here it must be noted that the Lamb of God not only "redeemed" both the Older Testament and the Newer Testament saints. He not only bought them ¾ and thus also brought them back to God ¾ from the realm of Satan. In addition, the Lamb also "made" or appointed the Older Testament and Newer Testament saints ¾ as "kings and priests to our God."

Indeed, the Lamb appointed them to be kings and priests not only here and now on the Earth ¾ before they die(d). Too, He appointed them to be kings and priests also here and now in Heaven ¾ also after they die(d).

Indeed, He appointed them to be kings and priests even thereafter ¾ in the future, and on the New Earth subsequent to the still-future resurrection of the dead. Thus the Geneva Bible suggests John then perceived the souls of dead saints in Heaven to be declaring: "We shall reign on the Earth!"

Sixth. The earthly exercise of that "kingly" office of both the Older Testament as well as the Newer Testament saints ¾ started at their regeneration. That is to say, it commenced before their deaths ¾ while they were still right here on Earth.

For they first became kings prior to their deaths and translations into Heaven. They remain(ed) kings after their deaths when they went to Heaven ¾ where they ruled and still rule and shall continue to rule (as disembodied souls). And they shall continue to be kings ¾ in even greater intensity, with Heaven and upon the New Earth. For one day they shall rule perfectly (in both soul and body) ¾ in Heaven-on-Earth, after the Final Judgment.

Seventh. Both those of the redeemed who were then still on Earth, as well as those of the redeemed who were then already in Heaven ¾ would one day once again reign right here on Earth. Those then reigning in Heaven, would one day return and reign again ¾ on the (renewed alias) the New Earth. And those then reigning on Earth, would soon die and then reign in Heaven ¾ and one day return and reign again on the (new) Earth.

Meantime, however, those then on Earth ¾ would soon reign here on Earth (before they died) even more powerfully than they had already reigned here on Earth. And their earthly descendants would reign even more powerfully here on Earth than had their faithful ancestors. For the reign of Christians here on Earth always needs to expand ¾ and, by the grace of God, indeed does so.

As those reigning here with Christ themselves learn to be meek or to obey the Law of God ¾ they more and more effect the whole cosmos for good. Indeed, "the meek...shall inherit the Earth." And the redeemed "shall reign upon the Earth." Likewise ¾ may also we and our descendants reign on Earth ¾ here and now!

Eighth. John saw how the new song of the expectant Church Triumphant in Heaven was reinforced by the voice of many unfallen and therefore unredeemed Angels. For there, the latter too sing together with the redeemed "living creatures" and the Elders. Yet, although the Angels cannot sing the other song of these redeemed ¾ the redeemed certainly sing the song of the Angels.

Exclaimed the Apostle: "Then I beheld and heard the voice of many angels round about the throne and the living creatures and the Elders. And the number of them was ten thousand times ten thousand and thousands of thousands [alias hundreds of millions], saying with a loud voice: 'Worthy is the Lamb Who was slain, to receive power and riches and wisdom and strength and honour and glory and blessing!'"

May that be our song, too! May also we sing it ¾ even while we are yet here on this present Earth and before we die!

Finally. John wrote in conclusion: "Every creature which is in Heaven and on the Earth and under the Earth and such as are in the sea and all which are in them ¾ I heard saying: 'Blessing and honour and glory and power be to Him Who sits upon the throne and to the Lamb ¾ for ever and ever!' Then the four living creatures said: 'Amen!' And the twenty-four Elders fell down and worshipped Him Who keeps on living for ever and ever."

Remarks Calvin in his Institutes of the Christian Religion: "It is absolutely certain that both irrational and inanimate objects are comprehended" here. For "every part of the Universe, from the highest pinnacle of Heaven to the very centre of the Earth, each in its own way, proclaims the glory of the Creator."

Accordingly, because "every creature" in the Universe each in its own way praises the Lord ¾ every human being too should do so. And because all of the twenty-four Elders representing the people of God say 'Amen' ¾ all of God's people right now, also here on Earth, should say 'Amen' too.

O Christian, the Lamb is still unrolling His scroll! May we too see that the whole stability and development of the Universe and of the World's future history depends upon His title to it, and His right to unfold it!

May we see how Christ's Calvary work and heavenly session is the basis of our ruling with Him here and now on this present Earth! And may we see that it guarantees too that also our faithful descendants shall rule with Him on this present Earth ¾ even more than we do, here and now!

May we understand that Christ's title to and unrolling of World History secures also our ruling with Him even after our decease and our entry into Heaven ¾ and further, of our ruling with Him still more, on the New Earth yet to come! May we even now therefore praise Him with all our strength! Indeed, while Christ's sevenfold Spirit still goes forth throughout all the Earth ¾ may we call upon all people to yield to Him, and to serve Him!

Amen, even so, come Lord Jesus!

And, until then ¾ onward, Christian soldiers!

On, to victory!

Revelation 6 December 7

The Son of man had shown John a vision of Heaven. In that vision, John saw how Christ Himself had prevailed and taken possession of the seven-sealed scroll and title-deed of World History. Christ did this after His resurrection, upon completion of His ascension at His heavenly session.

Next. John was shown how the now-enthroned Lamb subsequently opened the seven seals, one by one. This gives insight into the cumulative and progressive unrolling of the scroll of subsequent World History, here on Earth. As it unfolds ¾ such subsequent World History increasingly becomes expanding Church History.

This is the view of the Geneva Bible (of John Knox and Mrs. John Calvin's brother-in-law William Whittingham). That rightly comments: "The opening of the seal[s] is the declaration of God's will, and the executing of His judgments (that is, of His righteous actions in the course of human History). Thus too: Augustine, Andreas of Caesarea, Bede, Haymo, Anselm, Richard of St. Victor, Joachim of Floris, Arnold of Villanova, Pierre Jean d'Olivi, Wimbledon, Purvey, Savonarola, Pareus, Petri, Galloway, Hengstenberg, Hoeksema, Greijvenstein, the Afrikaans Bible with Explanatory Notes, and many others.

First. John foresaw significant events in World History ever since our Christ's resurrection and ascension and heavenly session. What he saw, bears the character of a progressive Christian conquest of this great planet Earth.

Wrote John: "I saw when the Lamb opened one of the seals, and I heard as it were the noise of thunder ¾ one of the four living creatures saying: 'Come and see!'" Here, one of the four living creatures was apparently summoning the white horse ¾ rather than summoning John. For the Apostle had already been summoned to Heaven in a vision, to see what Christ would show him there. Thus John wrote: "Then I saw. And look, a white horse!"

What then is this white horse? 'The Gospel!' ¾ answer Irenaeus, the Geneva Bible, the Dordt Dutch Bible, Matthew Henry, Hengstenberg, J.H. Lange, Lenski, Carroll, Greijvenstein, Hoeksema, and Rushdoony. The Calvinistic Geneva Bible comments: "The white horse signifies innocence, victory, and felicity ¾ which should come by the preaching of the Gospel."

Second. Who, however, is the rider of that horse? Here, John next wrote: "He Who sat on him, had a bow. And a crown was given to Him. And He went forth conquering, and to conquer!" This Rider is a warlike King and Conqueror, shooting forth 'His terrible swift Word' like arrows from His bow.

Says the Calvinist Dordt Dutch Bible: "The white horse with its conquering Rider, would portray Christ. Just as He had already begun through His Apostles, He would also subsequently subjugate pagan idolatry and other idle religions through other faithful Preachers.... Here the pure preaching of the Gospel is to be understood ¾ which Christ the King of kings, riding on the horse, spreads throughout the whole World by His powerful Spirit."

It is rather obvious that the Horseman on the white horse is our Lord Jesus Christ ¾ after His heavenly session, as He now sallies forth to conquer the World. This conquest began with His Spiritual descent into His Church here on Earth on Pentecost Sunday, and continues with His progressive subjugation of the World through His Spirit-filled Church ever since.

After all, this white horse and especially the Horseman Who rides it are clearly identified by John in a subsequent chapter of this same Book of Revelation. For there we read that the white horse is ridden by its Divine Horseman called "Faithful and True" and "the Word of God" and "King of kings and Lord of lords."

This is obviously none other than our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ ¾ alias the perfect Son of man. For the crown worn by the Horseman on the white horse, is the crown lost by the first Adam when he sinned in the garden of Eden. It was regained, and even further enhanced, by the Second Adam ¾ when He triumphed, from the garden of Gethsemane and the tree of life on Calvary, in His postmortal resurrection and His heavenly session.

Third. It is since His heavenly session as the reigning Son of man ¾ that the now-crowned Jesus goes forth conquering. And He does this in the power of His Spirit ¾ Whom He from Heaven sent forth upon His Church shortly after His heavenly session. For now, in the power of His sevenfold Spirit in all the Earth, Christ constantly activates His Spirit-filled earthly Church to go forth in His Name ¾ to conquer the World for Him.

As Christ's Spirit-filled Church conquers ¾ so does Christ Himself conquer. This is how He discharges His victorious arrows from His mighty bow. This is how He wields His sharp two-edged sword. For it is He Who thus empowers His Bible-wielding earthly Church to swing that sword and to shoot off those arrows.

It is the whole Bible, the Word of God, which is His sword. It is Bible-texts which are His darted arrows. That sword and those arrows are to be employed by Christ's Church Militant against His and her enemies. For thus Christ Himself goes forth into all the World ¾ conquering, and to conquer! It is He Who causes His Church to go forth with confidence in His own power ¾ conquering, and to conquer!

The great commentator Hengstenberg remarks on this verse: "The crown is given to the Rider, materially, so that He may bear it in His warlike and victorious march.... We must not interpret it as 'conquering, so that He conquered' [without even using the appointed agency of His Church]; but only as 'conquering, so that He might conquer'" ¾ namely conquer through the further warlike efforts precisely of His Spirit-filled Church.

This means: "Victory ¾ and nothing but victory! The expression 'so that He might conquer' is a substitute for the annexed infinite absolute in Hebrew ¾ which 'describes vividly unceasing progress' (Ewald).... It might also have stood as: 'conquering and conquering' ¾ or as: 'so that He conquered and conquered'" or 'so that He thus keeps on conquering. Compare the Hebrew infinitive absolute: 'certainly or thoroughly conquering.'

This means nothing less than that the Gospel is to attain victory over the World. Explains Hengstenberg: "The object of the victory can only be the World, as hostile to Christ.... Behind the punishment ¾ there is salvation, also for the World.... The Book [of Revelation] is primarily a book of consolation for the Church. This, in all its feebleness and tribulation, shall be revived ¾ by having the image of its heavenly King placed before its eyes, as He goes forth with invincible might to win a sure and glorious victory."

Fourth. Christ, however, conquers the World not only by opening the first seal and releasing the healing power of His Bible-wielding Church. For whenever His Voice and His Message by His Church go unheeded ¾ He also opens the second and the third and the fourth seals of His book of history. Even in those ways, He effects the subjugation of the Earth. That He accomplishes, also through the wounding power of His non-ecclesiastical agents (such as the red and black and pale horsemen who bring bloodshed, shortages and death).

Yet in all of the ravages inflicted by these hurtful non-ecclesiastical agencies, God is eminently merciful. For in general, He spares not only His faithful children still here on Earth. He also gives some restraint even to some of the unconverted. For He does not permit the red and black and pale horsemen always to waste the oil and the wine, nor even collectively to destroy more than one-quarter of the Earth and all its living creatures.

Writes John of the Lamb: "And when He had opened the second seal, I heard the second living creature say 'Come and see!' So I looked. And there went forth another horse, which was red. And power was given to him who sat on it, to take peace from the Earth ¾ and so that they should kill one another. And a big sword was given to him.

"Now when He [the Lamb] had opened the third seal, I heard the third living creature say 'Come and see!' So I looked. And behold, a black horse! And he who sat on it, had a pair of balances in his hand. Then I heard a voice in the midst of the four living creatures say: 'One measure of wheat [or]...three measures of barley for a penny [alias a day's wages] ¾ and see that you don't waste the oil and the wine!'" Barely enough to survive. Thus the fear of food-shortages and famine.

"And when He [the Lamb] had opened the fourth seal, I heard the voice of the fourth living creature say: 'Come and see!' Then I looked. And behold, a pale [or yellow-green] horse! And the name of the one who sat on him, was Death ¾ and the Grave followed with him. And power was given to them over the fourth part of the Earth ¾ to kill with sword, and with hunger, and with death, and with the wild beasts of the Earth."

Now these things only chasten and correct but never break God's elect ¾ who here seem to be fully three-quarters of the human race. Yet these wars and shortages or famines and sicknesses and Death and the Grave [or Hell] and the place of the dead and the lake of fire do decimate and destroy unbelievers as "the fourth part of the Earth" ¾ from the A.D. 70 siege and destruction of Jerusalem, right down throughout history until the Final Judgment.

As the Geneva Bible comments, the red horse signifies "the cruel wars that ensue[d] when the Gospel was [or is] refused." Likewise the black horse of famine, and the yellow-green horse of death.

Fifth. Christ's general care of His earthly Church during the wars and shortages or famines and deaths, however, is not to be construed as if He never allows His children to suffer. After all, the entire human race must die ¾ including Christians. And a good few of God's Christians are even martyred for the cause of their holy faith.

And so, wrote John, "when he had opened the fifth seal, I saw under the altar the souls of them who were slain for the Word of God and for the testimony which they held." This represents, in the words of the Geneva Bible, "the continual persecution of the Church."

Here again, as before, John was transported in a vision ¾ back from Earth to Heaven ¾ back from considering the wars and shortages and deaths here on Earth, to considering 'dead' Christians now in Heaven. There he saw the disembodied "souls" of the martyred saints under the altar in Heaven, 'safe in the arms of Jesus.'

Calvin declares in his Psychopannychia, that "the souls of the martyrs under the altar" are "the souls of the dead." Also the Calvinistic Geneva Bible notes: "They are in His safe custody in the Heavens."

There in Heaven, says John, "they cried out with a loud voice." There, "they keep on saying: 'How long, O holy and true Lord, do You not judge and avenge our blood upon them who dwell on the Earth?'"

Sixth. God repeatedly judges the wicked here and now in the various punishments He pours out throughout history. For He avenges the blood of His saints ¾ shed by the wicked (for Christ's sake). The Lord sends these punishments during history ¾ even though His Final Judgment against the wicked is reserved till His Second Coming in power and great glory.

Meantime ¾ white robes of justification were given to the disembodied souls of the Martyr Church in Heaven. In fact, such had been given to them already while they were still here on Earth ¾ even before they got to Heaven. "And it was said to them, that they should rest for just a little while yet ¾ until also their fellow-servants and their brethren who should be killed as they were, should be fulfilled."

Here, the Calvinistic Dordt Dutch Bible comments: "The Church of Christ would be oppressed by the Antichrist and his servants, who would shortly after that arise in the Church.... What succeeds that, is the rise in the East...of the Mohammadans." But the more subtle deceit, would be "especially...the Romish Antichrist in the West...[with]in the Church of Christ."

These killings continue from one place to another, down through the centuries. But when the last of God's elect has been called ¾ long after the very last Christian martyr has been slaughtered ¾ history shall be fulfilled at the Second Coming of the Lord Jesus Christ in Final Judgment.

Seventh. So, after opening the sixth seal, History will develop toward its end ¾ as Christ comes (invisibly although) mightily and in repeated judgments. For such 'comings of the Lord' and 'earthquakes' occur against the 'stars of the sky' and the 'mountains and rocks' ¾ alias influential men.

Wrote John: "Then I beheld when He had opened the sixth seal. And look! There was a great earthquake. And the sun became black as a hairy sackcloth, and the moon became like blood. And the stars of the sky fell to the Earth, even like a fig-tree casts her untimely figs when it is shaken by a mighty wind. And the sky departed like a scroll when it is rolled together; and every mountain and island were moved out of their places.

"Then the kings of the Earth and the great men and the rich men and the chief captains and the mighty men and every slave and every freeman ¾ hid themselves in the dens and in the rocks of the mountains, and said to the mountains and rocks: 'Fall on us, and hide us from the face of Him Who sits on the throne, and from the wrath of the Lamb! For the great day of His wrath has come. And who shall be able to keep on standing?'"

As the Calvinistic Geneva Bible here comments, 'the great earthquake' signifies "the change of the true doctrine which is the greatest cause of motions and troubles that come to the World." Similarly, 'the sun that was as black as sackcloth' represents "the brightness of the Gospel" eclipsed by "the traditions of men." Too, 'the moon...like blood' signifies "the Church miserably defaced with idolatry and afflicted by tyrants."

Again, continues the Geneva Bible, 'the stars of the sky' represent Teachers or "Doctors and Preachers that depart from the truth." And the 'mountains' and the 'rocks' here signify "realms, kingdoms and persons that did seem to be as stable...as the mountains" ¾ until God shakes them up in judgment after judgment. "Such men of whatever estate they be, shall be desperate afterward and not able to sustain the weight of God's wrath but shall continually fear His judgment."

Such major judgments would occur at the A.D. 70 destruction of Jerusalem (cf. Luke 23:28-30) ¾ to which, in the first instance, John may very well (at least initially) have been referring in this passage (Revelation 6:12f). Thus Grotius, Hammond, Matthew Henry, Adam Clarke, and Moses Stuart.

However, such major judgments would occur also even between the A.D. 70 destruction of Jerusalem and the fall of the pagan Roman Empire in A.D. 313f. Thus the Calvinistic Dordt Dutch Bible comments: "Here are shown things which would occur after...the four empires prophesied by Daniel....

"From the scenes shown at the opening of these seals, some understand the alterations and difficulties which overtook the Roman Empire from that time until the times of Emperor Constantine." Thus Walafrid Strabo, Berengaud, Wimbledon, Purvey, Savonarola, Bruno, Bale, Hooper, Cranmer, Ribera, Alcazar, James the First, Brightman, Poole, Isaac Newton, Samuel Lee, Thomas Scott, and Albert Barnes.

Such major judgments would occur also at the time of the Roman Empire's first Christian Emperor Constantine. Thus Brightman, Mede, More, Jurieu, Cressener, Whiston, Daubuz, Lowman, Bishop Thomas Newton, John Brown of Haddington, and Bishop Elliott.

But there would be other times too at which such major judgments would occur. For example: at the later pagan attacks against the christianized Roman Empire, and especially at the fall of Rome in 476 (thus Fuller, Frere, Albert Barnes, & Hengstenberg); at the takeover of the Holy Roman Empire by the Papacy (thus the Dordt Dutch Bible & Campegius Vitringa); at the French Revolution (thus Faber, Cunninghame, Willis, Lord, Leslie, & William Anderson) ¾ and also at other events toward the end of history (thus Lange, Greijvenstein, and Prof. Herman Hoeksema).

To the above list of judgments, we ourselves would propose a few more. Such would include: the unleashing against a backslidden Western Church of the Islamic scourge, in the form of Mohammad's armies in 590-732; the chastisement of the idolatrous Eastern Churches by the Turks in 1050-1450; the sixteenth-century Protestant wounding of the Papacy; the seventeenth-century judgment on lukewarm churchianity by the Illuminati (and by the French Revolution as its chief by-product); the twentieth-century scourges of Communism, Humanism, Socialism, and apostate religious Ecumenism and the New Age Movement; the future downfall of the false World Systems of Romanism and Islam before the advancing armies of the living God; and the final visible coming of Christ on the clouds of Heaven in power and great glory to judge the living and the dead.

All of the above applies to God's coming in judgment especially against Jerusalem in A.D. 70 ¾ and also to His many subsequent comings in judgment, from time to time, throughout History (as indicated above). But in the ultimate sense, it applies especially to Christ's future visible coming in Final Judgment; of which all of the previous comings in judgment are but reminders.

Calvin's Institutes of the Christian Religion (III:9:6) give a fine description of that Day of Judgment. Says Calvin: "On that Day...the Lord will receive His faithful servants, wipe away all tears from their eyes, clothe them in a robe of glory and joy, feed them with the uneffable sweetness of His pleasures, [and] exalt them to share with Him in His greatness."

O Christian, may we too see and believe that our reigning Saviour rules this World! May we know that He, through the testimony of His Church, ever sallies forth from Heaven ¾ conquering, and to conquer our Earth!

May we see and warn people about His presence, even in the punishments of war and of shortages and of death! May we urge men to yield to Christ!

May we know that this World of ours shall continue ¾ until the last of God's elect has been called, and His last martyr has been slain! Indeed, with every God-sent temporal judgment in our World ¾ may we look forward, in God's good time, to the visible advent of our Saviour in power and great glory at the Final Judgment!

So on, then, Christian soldiers!

Let us too go forth conquering, and to conquer ¾ in the Name of Jesus!

Onward then, following after our conquering Saviour ¾ unto victory!

All the Elect of the Tribes of Israel sealed and spared

John had just seen the opening of the sixth seal. Then he was again transported in his vision from Heaven back to the Earth. And there he saw an Angel sealing the elect of God.

There is evidence elsewhere in the Book of Revelation and in other Books of the Bible, that the sealing of the elect actually commenced early in the times of the Older Testament ¾ and shall continue right down to the final Coming of Jesus Christ at the very end of World History. Yet the sealing described by John here in Revelation chapter seven, rather seems to be describing events which take place since Christ's resurrection ¾ between the time of the opening of the sixth and the time of the opening of the seventh or last seal of the Lamb's book of Church History. Both views are cogent.

Wrote John: "And after these things" ¾ that is, after the opening of six of the seven seals of the Lamb's book in Heaven ¾ "I saw four Angels standing on the four corners of the Earth, holding the four winds of the Earth, so that the wind should not blow on the Earth, nor on the Sea, nor on any tree. Then I saw another Angel ascending from the East, having the seal of the living God. And He cried out with a loud voice to the four Angels to whom it was given to hurt the Earth and the Sea, saying: 'Do not hurt the Earth, neither the Sea, nor the trees ¾ till we have sealed the servants of our God upon their foreheads!'"

First. It should be noted that the four Angels restraining the four winds from hurting the Earth and the Sea and the trees, was to be subservient to the more important task of sealing God's elect on their foreheads.

Here, the four Angels (or Messengers) ¾ as also regarding the "Angels" of the Congregations in chapters two and three ¾ probably means Christ's Messengers or Preachers. Too, "the four winds" controlled by those four Angels ¾ here seems to refer to the blessings and curses of God which His Preachers are to proclaim to their listeners. Such divine messages preached, are blessings if the listeners obey them; and curses if they disobey them.

For the four winds of the Earth, comments the Calvinistic Geneva Bible, represent the totality of the witness of the Holy Spirit. For "the Spirit [Pneuma] is compared to wind [pneuma].... Though there be one Spirit..., yet four [spirits or winds] are here named in respect of the diversity of the four quarters of the Earth where the Gospel is spread" by Spirit-filled "Preachers of the same through[out] the whole World."

Furthermore, "those that are sealed by the Spirit of God...make open profession of the same." They constitute "an infinite number which shall be saved both of the Jews and Gentiles through Christ."

Second. It should be observed that the sealing of God's servants was undertaken at the command of another "Angel...having the seal of the living God." This other "Angel" or Messenger is very probably the Lord Jesus Christ Himself. For this "Angel, ascending from the East" ¾ rising as the Sun of righteousness like the sun in the East, and later soon ascending from the Earth into Heaven ¾ is indeed the One with "the seal of the living God."

Such is indeed the one-and-only uncreated "[Arch-]Angel" or "Messenger of the Covenant" God the Son. In the first and last resorts, He is the One Who leads and seals ¾ even though He 'subcontracts' created 'Messengers' or Preachers to administer His seal to the sum-total of His earthly followers.

Third. This "sealing" is probably a reference to the important work of baptizing God's Newer Testament Covenant People with water from the sacramental "Sea" ¾ even as Jesus had declared that he who believes and is baptized, shall be saved. Moreover, also later, we read that even when many of the inhabitants of the Earth were tormented ¾ such torment was to be meted out to "only those men who do not have the seal of God on their foreheads."

States H.B. Swete in his work The Apocalypse of St. John ¾ in the post-apostolic writings which followed it, 'the seal of the Lord' is either Baptism or the Chrism (alias Confirmation). Thus the Shepherd of Hermas and Clement of Alexandria.

The A.D. 100f Shepherd of Hermas (III:IX:16 & III:IX:22) says regarding "the seal of the Son of God" that "before a man bears the Name of the Son of God, he is dead. But when he receives the seal, he lays aside his deadness [cf. Romans 4:11 & 4:23-5 & 6:1-5].... The seal, then, is the water.... This seal was preached.... They who believed...are like infant children.... Infants are honourable before God, and are the first persons with Him."

Clement of Alexandria in section 42 of his A.D. 190f work Who is the Rich Man that shall be Saved? declares: "The Presbyter, having taken the youth..., finally baptized him. After this, he [mistakenlu] relaxed his stricter care and guardianship ¾ under the idea that the seal of the Lord he had set upon him, was a complete protection to him."

Also Professor Dr. Abraham Kuyper Sr. states on Rev. 7:4's "number of those who had been sealed" that "this idea of understanding the Sacraments as a seal is taken from Scripture itself. In Romans 4:11 we read the following of the patriarch Abraham: 'He received the sign of Circumcision as a seal of the righteousness of faith'.... In the Sacrament of Holy Baptism ¾ we are dealing with a sign that seals [Romans 4:23-25; 6:1-5; Colossians 2:11-13]....

"In Second Corinthians 1:21-22, we read that 'it is God Who has anointed us and confirmed us with you in Christ. He has also sealed us and given the earnest [or down-payment] of the Spirit in our hearts'....

"Ephesians 1:13 is similar: 'Christ...has sealed you with the Holy Spirit of promise.... What we read in Ephesians 4:30, has similar implications: 'Do not grieve the Holy Spirit of God, by Whom you have been sealed unto the day of redemption'....

"These statements refer to, and are connected with, Holy Baptism.... When one thinks about this deeply, one then also realizes how it can be said in Revelation 7:2 that even God the King has such a seal." A. Kuyper Sr.: From the Decrees of Dordt, Wormser, Amsterdam, 1892, pp. II:440-4, 509f.

Kuyper elsewhere argues: "The effect of Baptism is the seal of the living God as the sign of incorporation into the Covenant of Grace.... Baptism seals incorporation...into the Church of Christ as it is visibly expressed here on Earth.... Baptism is and always remains the sealing of incorporation into the Covenant of Grace, and therewith into the Church Universal....

"The chief aspect of Baptism, is that it is the seal of the living God unto incorporation in the Covenant of Grace.... God indeed has just such a seal. Revelation 7:2.... This seal is stamped upon the elect...who receive knowledge of the truth and are baptized." Thus A. Kuyper Sr.: On the Sacraments (in Dictations on Dogmatics, IV, Kok, Kampen, 2nd ed., pp. 127f & 134f).

What a wonderful comfort to God's baptized people, then ¾ for them to know that no terror or pestilence or evil or plague shall as much as come near their dwellings! For God shall give His angels charge over them ¾ to keep them in all their ways.

Fourth. We have just been told about the sealing of the 'Israelites' ¾ the elect from "Israel" ¾ right here on Earth. Thereafter, we are told next about the ingathering of the fullness of the 'Gentiles' in Heaven.

Here, we are not told that no 'Gentiles' were sealed here on Earth before all the 'Israelites' had finished being sealed here on Earth. Still less are we here told that no 'Israelites' will be sealed here on Earth after all the 'Gentiles' have been sealed here on Earth. In fact, here it certainly seems that the 'Israelites' sealed on Earth are the very same group of people as are the 'Gentiles' gathered in Heaven.

For in the times of the Older Testament, the first believing Israelites were Gentiles! In the times of the Newer Testament, the first believing Gentiles were 'Israelites'! Indeed, in the times of both the Older Testament and the Newer Testament, God saves both 'Israelites' and 'Gentiles' by bringing them into 'Zion' (alias the true Christian Church).

Fifth. As regards the sealed 'Israelites' ¾ their "number" is here described as "a hundred and forty-four thousand from all the tribes of the children of Israel." Both this "number" and also these "tribes" themselves are to be construed ideally ¾ rather than 'literally' (sic).

For even the twelve tribes of Israel are not specifically enumerated strictly ¾ right after this. There, the full tribe of Dan is omitted; the half-tribe of Manasseh is described as a full tribe; and the half-tribe of Ephraim is replaced by a 'new' tribe ¾ namely the 'full' tribe of Joseph (in addition to the half-tribe of Manasseh).

So too, the precise apportionment of "twelve thousand" sealed persons to each of the twelve 'newly'-constituted tribes of 'Israel' ¾ is hardly to be construed too arithmetically. For these numbers are in strange contrast to the great disparities regarding the respective quantities and godliness of each ethnic tribe of Israel as recorded in the Older Testament.

Sixth. It is of interest to note that even the order in which the several tribes of 'Israel' are presented in the Book of Revelation, is different from the various orders given of them in the Older Testament. Here in the administration of the Newer Testament, the tribe of Judah is now foremost in line.

The reason for Judah's elevation to the first in rank, is not far to seek. "Our Lord [Jesus Christ] sprang forth from Judah."

Indeed, since Calvary, Jesus Christ ¾ "the Lion of the tribe of Judah, the Root of David ¾ has prevailed to open the book [of Future History] and to loosen its seven seals." Accordingly, Judah is now magnified, and even the order and importance and numbers of the Christianly-sealed "children of Israel" have themselves been ameliorated.

Clearly, then, neither the specific "tribes" of 'Israel' nor the respective "number[s]" of their elect nor the various "order" in which they are elsewhere mentioned ¾ are here in view. The meaning here, is simply that the sum-total of God's elect or 'Israel' shall yet be brought into the Church of God under the Newer Testament.

For this 'Israel' (or 'Prince of the Triune God') ¾ consists of converted 'Israelites' as well as of converted 'Gentiles.' It embraces "Judah" or 'Praise [the Lord]!'; "Reuben" or 'Behold a Son!'; "Gad" or 'Great Troup!'; "Asher" or 'Blessed!'; "Nephthalim" or 'Overcomers!'; "Manasseh" or 'Forget [the Past]!'; "Simeon " or '[God] has heard!'; "Levi or 'Joined [to God]!'; "Issachar" or 'The Price has been Paid!'; "Zabulon" or 'Dwelling [with the Lord]!'; "Joseph" or '[The Lord keeps on] Adding!'; and "Benjamin" or 'The Son of My Right Hand!'

Seventh, it is obvious that great multitudes of 'Israelites' ¾ alias Christians from all nations ¾ will yet be saved. Indeed, this will occur long before the Final Coming of the Lord Jesus on the clouds of Heaven.

Thus twelve, being the number of the Triune Creator (Three) multiplied by the number of His creation (four), is here again multiplied by ten (the number of perfection) ¾ and yet again by ten squared. This yields the number of 'double perfect fullness' or "twelve thousand" servants per "Tribe" of all the "children of Israel."

Then again, this number of twelve thousand for each "tribe" ¾ is further multiplied by the ('Creator' times 'creation') number of twelve. This yields a sum-total for all the "tribes" of the "children of Israel" collectively. It amounts to "a hundred and forty-four thousand." This is the number of 'absolute perfection.' It will be reached when the last elect 'Israelite' shall be saved, and the last Christian martyr shall be killed. Thus will this number of 'absolute perfection' "be fulfilled."

Interestingly, most Bible Commentators here suggest that the number(s) and the name(s) and the order(s) of the "tribes" of 'Israel' are not strictly precise ¾ but ideal and symbolic. Thus Victorinus says this means Hebrew Christians. Primasius, Beatus, Bede, and Swete say it means all the elect.

The Calvinistic Geneva Bible says it means "an infinite number of both Jews and Gentiles who shall be saved through Christ." And the Dordt Dutch Bible says it means either the elect of the Older Testament's Hebrews, or the Hebrew and Gentile elect of the Newer Testament's Church Militant.

Matthew Poole and Albert Barnes and Herman Hoeksema say it means the Gentile Church ¾ Barnes further suggesting that the "Tribes" may well mean Christian "Denominations." Matthew Henry says it means the faithful remnant of ethnic Israel before 70 A.D. And Adam Clarke says it means all the Jews and all the Christians who are now in Heaven ¾ by grace and through faith.

The Hebrew-Christian Prof. Dr. Ewald says it means the whole Christian Church. Hengstenberg says it is to be taken in the "Israelitish-Christian sense, because Dan is omitted." Lenski and Hendriksen say it means the Church Militant. Finally ¾ Greijvenstein, Ladd, the Afrikaans Bible with Explanatory Notes, Mounce and Rushdoony all say it means the whole Church.

O Christian, even today ¾ when many Gentiles are still blind to the Gospel, and when blindness has in part come also upon the Jews ¾ thank God, that blindness is only in part! The true "Israel" is still being engrafted into the Covenant of Grace. Indeed, together with the fullness of the Gentiles ¾ even the fullness of the Jews shall yet be restored to mercy.

Let us then work for the salvation of "Israel" alias the Christian Church Universal ¾ even as we work for the salvation of the World!

So on, then, Christian soldiers!

On with missions to the Jews ¾ and to the Gentiles!

On with the sealing of "Israel" alias the Christian Church ¾ in Holy Baptism!

Onward, to victory!

Revelation 7:9-17 December 9

John had just seen the sealing of the fullness of "Israel" ¾ here on Earth. Then he was again transported in his vision ¾ back to Heaven.

For next, he wrote: "I beheld. And look! A great multitude which no man could number, from all nations and kindreds [or families] and people and tongues, stood in front of the throne and in front of the Lamb. They were clothed with white robes, having palm-branches in their hands."

First. John here saw the Church Triumphant ¾ the Church in Heaven. Thus the Geneva Bible, the Dordt Dutch Bible, Poole, Matthew Henry, Lange, Hengstenberg, Barnes, Hoeksema, Swete, Hendriksen, Greijvenstein, Ladd, Lenski, the Afrikaans Bible with Explanatory Notes, and Mounce.

Here, the Church has triumphed for ever. For all of her Members are seen to be holding palm-branches or phoinikes before the throne of the Lamb ¾ "in token of victory and felicity" (thus the Geneva Bible).

Second. Here again, as also seen previously, it is not declared that these 'Gentiles' went to Heaven only after the 'Israelites' were sealed here on Earth. It is declared merely that John only saw the 'Gentiles' in Heaven after he saw the 'Israelites' being sealed on Earth.

"After this, I beheld" ¾ Revelation 7:9, cf. 7:1-4f. Indeed, as just previously implied, the 'Israelites' sealed on Earth ultimately prove to be the same group of people as the 'Gentiles' gathered in Heaven.

For at the very time John was writing these words, and as already clearly predicted by Paul, the stream of Jewish converts flowing into the Christian Church had been diminishing ¾ while the stream of Gentile converts was beginning to flow stronger and stronger. Indeed, down through the subsequent centuries of Church History ¾ both groups would continue to flow into the true Israel of God alias the Christian Church which is ultimately to consist of "the nations of them that are saved" (Revelation 21:24f).

Third. It should be noted that John here saw in Heaven "a great multitude which no man could number." Vast though the number of the 'Israelites' was which John previously saw being sealed on Earth ¾ that number was still numerable (at least symbolically). But the sum-total of the 'Gentiles' which John now saw in Heaven ¾ was beyond both his own and any other man's powers of computation.

This means that the Church of Jesus starts out here on Earth on only a small scale. However, the completed Church in Heaven will no longer be but a "little flock" or merely a "chosen few" ¾ after the completion of its earthly sealing.

So far, down through Church History here on Earth, the numbers of these Church Members have constantly increased. They will continue to do so. But when they die and all get to Heaven ¾ their ranks shall ultimately swell to that of a "great multitude which no man could number."

Indeed, there they will be even as innumerable as the countless billions of stars in the sky. For they cannot be counted, once gathered together in Heaven at the end of World History ¾ and immediately prior to their transfer back to the Re-New-ed Earth.

Fourth. This huge host of the redeemed in Heaven at the end of World History ¾ constitutes "a great multitude which no man could number, from all nations." For John saw not merely a handful of believers saved from out of the Jews; nor even a handful of believers saved from out of every nation on Earth. To the contrary. He saw a great and humanly-innumerable multitude of all nations. Thus Matthew Henry and Adam Clarke.

A multitude of nations ¾ as nations! This does not, of course, imply that all individuals among all nations shall be saved. For at least some individuals are reprobate, and will certainly be lost. In this sense, Christians are redeemed from out of every kindred and people and tongue and people and nation. On the other hand, however, God's Word also teaches that [ultimately] even the nations shall be saved ¾ their "fullness" and not their 'emptiness'; the majority and not just a minority of their citizens.

God promised Abraham that not just an elect minority of believers from every nation would be saved. For God told him: "In your seed" ¾ and Christ is that Seed ¾ "all the nations of the Earth shall be blessed!" Indeed, John's "great multitude...from all nations" is later described by that Apostle himself as "the nations [who] shall walk in the light" and who "shall bring the glory and honour of the nations" into the New Jerusalem.

This includes the "fullness" and the "honour" also of Israel and Egypt and China. Currently, the modern nation of Israel is enslaved to apostate Judaism; Egypt to antichristian Islam; and China to atheistic Communism. But ultimately, all nations will have become christianized. For, as a result of the success of Christian Missionary Work, they shall yet become baptized nations ¾ observing all things whatsoever Christ has ever commanded.

Fifth. This great multitude of Gentiles which John saw in Heaven, will be gathered not only from all nations. It will be assembled also from all "kindreds" ¾ from all families. This means, quite frankly, that every "kindred" or each family as such here on Earth ¾ as opposed, of course, to each Member of every family ¾ will ultimately be saved.

This is what God promised to Abraham the father of all believers. For He told him: "In you, all families of the Earth shall be blessed!"

We too are children of Abraham and heirs according to the promise. May also we therefore exercise faith ¾ and believe that God really means exactly what He says!

Sixth. The innumerable company of the saved in Heaven shall consist of every people and every tongue. Pentecost Sunday, when the Holy Ghost came down from the throne of God and the Lamb on high, was a preview of Heaven. Already at Pentecost, the mighty works of God were spoken about in every language under Heaven.

Yet now, in Heaven itself, John saw how those same mighty works of God will ultimately be praised in every language. For the "new song" to the glory of the Lamb shall be sung in Heaven by the elect of every "tongue and people and nation."

It shall be sung in English, by Americans and by the British, etc.; in Hindi, by Indians; in Chinese, by Chinamen; in Russian, by Russians; in Spanish, by Spaniards and South Americans. It shall be sung in German, by Germans and Austrians and Swiss and Liechtensteiners and Luxemburgians ¾ and in French, by Frenchmen, Belgians, Guianians, Haitians, Quebecois and West Africans. It shall be sung in Afrikaans by South Africans and Namibians, and in Portuguese ¾ by Angolans, Brazilians, Galicians, Mozambicans, and Timorese.

Even in less-widely-spoken languages ¾ such as Afghan, Auca, Bushman, Gaelic, Hawaiian, Icelandic, Irish, Manx, Maori, Navaho, Welsh, Xhosa and Zulu ¾ the Name of Jehovah shall be praised. For the Universe itself will then reverberate to the honour of the Lord ¾ as God then conducts the whole vocal orchestra of humanity itself. Mankind as the crown and glory of the cosmos will then encircle the heavenly throne of God and extol His Name, by singing the song of redemption and victory in every language and tongue of all nations and kindreds and people.

Seventh. This mass of saved humanity in Heaven will then be seen to have been saved even out of great tribulation. This is pre-eminently that of A.D. 66-70, although it also seems to include all subsequent tribulations suffered here on Earth before one's death.

Chilton and Gentry apply this great tribulation to the fall of Jerusalem from A.D. 66 onward. The Dordt Dutch Bible applies it to the tribulation of Protestants under the Antichrist (alias the Papacy). Matthew Poole applies it to "great sufferings and persecution." And Adam Clarke identifies it both with "the Diocletian persecution" of A.D. 293f, as well as with "persecutions of every kind."

Hoeksema refers the "great tribulation" to the whole of Church History; especially to Domitian's rule, and also to the end-time. Hendriksen sees it as "all the persecutions and trials of God's people." Ladd and Mounce have it cover all Church History, and especially an end-time tribulation. Lenski says: "Never is tribulation ¾ pressure ¾ entirely absent from the Church." The Afrikaans Bible with Explanatory Notes applies it to the whole of Church History. And Greijvenstein says it "covers all periods of persecution to be endured by believers on Earth, throughout the whole time of World History."

In Heaven, all shall serve God, day and night ¾ in His holy temple alias His heavenly sanctuary. Of this, to be entered into only through the blood of Jesus ¾ God Himself gave Moses a pattern for the construction of the earthly tabernacle and all of its equipment in the wilderness.

The above points to a heavenly life of perpetual religion, twenty-four 'hours' per 'day' and seven 'days' per 'week' ¾ without ceasing. O, that we too would realize right here on Earth (and even now) that life is religion ¾ and that true religion is life itself (and not just a part of life)!

Last. It should be noted, however, tht the saints will not stay in that 'merely-heavenly' condition for ever. No. After the Final Judgment, the time will come when Heaven itself and all of its inhabitants will come down onto the (then re)new(ed) Earth.

For even God's Temple of Heaven ¾ shall yet be brought down to Earth. And when God's saints get their bodies back, they will serve Him for ever in those bodies here on Earth (after its renewal).

Meantime, right now, "they are before the throne of God, and serve Him day and night in His Temple" in Heaven. But on the New Earth yet to come, "He Who sits on the throne shall dwell among them. They shall hunger no more, neither thirst any more. Neither shall the sun [cast] light or any heat upon them. For the Lamb Who is in the midst of the throne, shall feed them ¾ and shall lead them to fountains of living water. And God shall wipe away all tears from their eyes."

Then, the Lamb will consummate everything. Indeed, "when He had opened the seventh seal, there was silence in Heaven." For the Cosmic Sabbath then arrives ¾ the saints' Everlasting Rest here on Earth; in Heaven-on-Earth.

That "silence" denotes the arrival of Eternal Rest (thus Victorinus, Bede and Anselm). It introduces the Jubilee (thus Pierre Jean d'Olivi). It refers to the Advent, the Second Coming of Christ (thus Cunninghame and Baylee).

O Christian, may we too work for the redemption of that great multitude which no man can number! For we too must endure some tribulation, and perhaps even great tribulation, while taking the Everlasting Gospel to all of the nations ¾ and thus doing the will of God here on Earth, even as it is now being done in Heaven.

Yet one day, the kingdoms of this World shall have become the Kingdom of our God and of His Christ. And then, He shall keep on reigning for ever and ever ¾ everywhere here on Earth, as well as elsewhere throughout His Universe. For then it shall be 'ever-morning' and 'never-evening' ¾ on God's Everlasting Cosmic Sabbath.

So on, then, Christian soldiers!

Onward ¾ as the Geneva Bible comments ¾ "in token of victory and felicity!"

Onward, to victory!

Revelation 8 December 10

Christ had just given to John a sweeping overview of the major future ecclesiastical events (both here on Earth below as well as in Heaven above). Christ gave that overview, after His opening of the sixth seal (of the Lamb's book of Church History) ¾ announcing the 70 A.D. fall of Jerusalem and many other subsequent events down till the end of time.

However, "when He had opened the seventh seal ¾ there was silence in Heaven for about the space of half an hour." This is apparently the silence of the Cosmic Sabbath at the end of Church History, after the attainment of the christianization of the whole World and the baptismal sealing of all its many nations.

After hearing that impressive silence, John received another vision of what would happen here on Earth between the time of his own day and the arrival of the Cosmic Sabbath at the end of World History. In that new vision, John saw seven Angels with seven trumpets ¾ heralding both earthly blessing to the Church, and temporal judgments against the unrepentant World. In that same vision, he also saw Another Angel ¾ superintending and assisting the saints to pray, and conveying their prayers even to the very throne of God.

Now the events recorded in this new series (of the seven Angels with the seven trumpets), do not occur only after the events recorded in the previous series of the seven seals as a whole. For the series of events heralded by each of the seven trumpets seriatim ¾ do not succeed but rather run parallel to the series of events unfolded at the breaking of each of the seven seals one by one. Yet the blessings and judgments trumpeted by the seven Angels do (by and large) indeed succeed one another.

First. The seven trumpets apparently announce some of the major events stretching from John's own day right down to the time of the finishing of the mystery of God alias the end of His Revelation. As such, those events involve God's partly-passed but also-partly-still-future plans for man.

For John "saw the seven Angels which stood in front of God.... To them, seven trumpets were given.... The seven Angels which had the seven trumpets, prepared themselves to sound [the trumpets]. The first Angel sounded.... Then the second Angel sounded.... Then the third Angel sounded.... Then the fourth Angel sounded.... Then the fifth Angel sounded.... Then the sixth Angel sounded.... Then, in the days of the sounding of the seventh Angel, when he shall begin to sound, the mystery of God would be finished."

Let us now attempt to establish when the events predicted by the sounding of each of the trumpets seriatim would begin to be fulfilled in the History of the Church and of the World. It is not stated that these trumpets are end-time instruments, to be blown only immediately prior to the final coming of the Lord Jesus Christ back to Earth. No. Rather do these trumpets ¾ just like the seals ¾ appear to cover the whole course (or at least a considerable part) of Church History after Christ's heavenly session. Indeed, they seem to have occurred ¾ or (in some cases) are yet to occur ¾ between His 'invisible' A.D. 70 coming with the Pagan-Roman armies to judge apostate Jerusalem, and His visible Final Coming to judge the whole World.

Second. The events heralded by the trumpets are not all yet-future ¾ as the Futurists wrongly allege. Neither were they all to finish occurring during John's own lifetime ¾ as Hyperpreterists allege. But many were to start and finish occurring only after John's lifetime, although at least the seventh trumpet has not yet even started to sound ¾ as the Historicalists rightly argue.

Also as regards this passage, most of the great commentators have been Historicalists. Thus: Bede, Strabo, the Calvinistic Geneva Bible, Brightman, the Calvinistic Dordt Dutch Bible, Mede, Gerhard, Sherwin, Jurieu, Fleming, Cotton Mather, Matthew Henry; Sir Isaac Newton, Jonathan Edwards, Bishop Thomas Newton, John Gill, Samuel Langdon, John Brown of Haddington, G.S. Faber, Thomas Scott, Adam Clarke, Alexander Keith, Louis Gaussen, Bishop E.B. Elliott, Albert Barnes, and J.P. Lange, etc.

The events announced by the trumpet-blasts appear to occur successively ¾ rather than concurrently (or simultaneously). There is even a progression in the intensity of the various events which occur ¾ following the sounding of each trumpet. Yet there is no evidence that the events following the sounding of a particular trumpet always cease before the next events begin to operate after the sounding of the following trumpet. For the events proclaimed by the seven trumpets ¾ though largely progressive and successive ¾ were to be enduring events (just like the seven days of creation itself).

Third. Before the seven trumpets (of these Angels) are described in detail, John was first shown how "another Angel came and stood at the altar, having a golden censer. Then much incense was given to Him, so that He should offer it with the prayers of all saints upon the golden altar in front of the throne. And the smoke of the incense with the prayers of the saints, went up in front of God ¾ out of the hand of the Angel."

Clearly, this is an uncreated Angel ¾ namely our great Messenger, the Lord Jesus Christ Himself. For no One else could offer the prayers of all the saints upon the altar to God as their great Mediator. He 'intercedes' with His Father on behalf of all of the prayers prayed for Jesus' sake by all of the saints ¾ that is, by all of those who have been sanctified ¾ without exception.

In fact, He conveys to His Father all of the prayers prayed throughout Church History: even while His judgments are being poured out upon the Earth. Indeed, He also controls the seven created Angels who trumpet out Christ's warnings to the unrepentant World through the messages of the Preacher-Angels of Christ's Own Church here on Earth.

Thus Christ holds both His bodyless spirit-angels as well as His embodied Preacher-Angels in His Own almighty hand. Indeed, He sends them forth into all the World to bring down His blessings upon the penitent ¾ and His judgments upon those prayerless earthlings who refuse to become His saints. For "the Angel took the censer, and filled it with fire from the altar, and cast it upon the Earth. Then there were voices, and thunderings, and lightnings, and an earthquake."

As the Calvinistic Geneva Bible comments, our "only remedy in our afflictions" ¾ is to appear before the face of God by means of Jesus Christ. He is the Angel, the Sacrifice, and the Priest Who presents our prayers...before the altar and divine majesty of God."

Indeed, also the great Lutheran Commentator Bengel here observes: "Frank-incense and prayer draw a great deal after it. It is acceptable. It will be heard. God then causes His righteous judgments to go forth as a terror to the World ¾ for the discomfiture of His enemies, and for the advancement of His Kingdom."

Fourth. We now return to the sounding of the trumpets, accompanied by the prayers of the saints which constantly kept and keep on being conveyed to the Father ¾ by and for the sake of His uncreated 'Other' Angel Jesus Christ. Wrote John: "Then I saw the seven Angels who stood in front of God. Then seven trumpets were given to them.... And the seven Angels who had the seven trumpets, prepared themselves to sound" ¾ to blow those trumpets!

What do the events announced by the successive blowing on these trumpets involve? Respectively and consecutively, they apparently refer to: the A.D. 70 fall of Jerusalem; the vicious attacks of heretics who plagued the early Post-Apostolic Church, and the later invasions of the Christian heartland by Goths, Vandals, Huns, and Heruli; and the ferocious attacks on Christianity first by Mohammad's Arabian Moslems and later by the Saracen Turks.

Those events would impact upon and be followed by also further events. Such include: the undermining of the Church herself by the awful idolatry of Eastern-Orthodoxy's Ritualism, as well as by the machinations of the Western Romish Papacy ¾ and also the ongoing re-form-ation of Christ's Kingdom by the rising tide of Biblical Protestantism, right down to the universal victory of Christianity toward the end of World History. Let us then take a closer look at these events, which follow(ed) after the blowing on each of the trumpets.

Fifth. John heard the first created-Angel sound his trumpet. "The first Angel sounded. Then there followed hail and fire mixed with blood, and they were cast upon the Earth. And the third part of the trees was burnt up, and all green grass was burnt up."

This strongly reminds us of a combination of the ten plagues of Egypt. It seems to represent the combined destruction (here termed "blood"?) wrought by nature (here termed "hail"?) and persecution (here termed "fire"?) upon the vegetation (here termed "grass" and "trees").

Only one-third of all this was destroyed. Now the Book of Revelation elsewhere suggests that "Egypt" is the place of the apostate covenant people "where also our Lord was crucified" ¾ and inasmuch as elsewhere in Scripture "trees" frequently represent human leaders, and "grass" frequently represents their 'grass-roots' followers. So we here have a picture of what is probably the judgmental and bloody destruction of the leaders as well as the followers of the Christ-rejecting Judean Judaists by fire and by "hail" in A.D. 70 ¾ as well as a picture of judgment on apostate Church Members both then and thereafter.

Sixth. John next heard the second trumpet being blown. "Then 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 which had life died, and the third part of the ships were destroyed."

Now the first judgment had fallen upon the "land" (probably meaning the terrain of first-century Judaea) and its apostate contents (including its plants and its men). But the following or second judgment was to fall upon the sea and its inhabitants ¾ on its fish and on "those who go down to the sea in ships." Yet here again, only one-third of the inhabitants (of the sea) was destroyed.

The Geneva Bible comments here that the burning "mountain" cast into the sea, means that various or "divers sects of heretics were spread abroad in the World." Throughout Scripture, the word "mountain" is frequently used as an image of Israel.

Again, the word "sea" is frequently used throughout Scripture as an image of the power-wielders in the Gentile World. Previously, after the sounding of the first trumpet ¾ the burning up of the trees and the grass, probably refers to the destruction of Jerusalem (alias 'Egypt') by fire. And now, after the sounding of the second trumpet ¾ the object which was "as it were a great mountain burning with fire" was perhaps the scorched remnant of apostate Judaea, scattered especially after A.D. 70 (and also in subsequent centuries) throughout the "sea" of the Gentile World.

For the burning mountain of Judaism (thus Mauro) fills "the third part of the sea" of the Gentile World with blood and death and destruction. Then, it also filled the international communications media with anti-Christian propaganda (albeit only partially so). Too, the second trumpet probably also heralds "the invasion of the Roman Empire [including its apostate 'Christian' citizens] by foreign nations and by the barbarians" (thus Bengel).

Seventh. John then heard the third trumpet being blown. Wrote he: "The third Angel sounded. Then a great star fell out of the sky, burning like a lamp. And it fell upon the third part of the rivers, and upon the fountains of waters. And the name of the star is called 'Wormwood.' And the third part of the waters became wormwood. And many men died from the waters, because they had been made bitter."

This time, destruction fell upon one-third of the fresh waters which thirsty men need to drink. The great star which fell from the sky burning like a lamp, is probably Lucifer himself or one or more or all of his agents (such as apostate clergy etc.).

Lucifer was the greatest star or created Angel. Yet, instead of upholding (luci-ferre) the Son of God as The Lamp of the Universe ¾ Lucifer himself futilely tried to illuminate men like The Lamp and Light of the World!

In himself trying to be The Lamp and Light of the World ¾ Lucifer fell. Indeed, he continued to fall even further, in various stages, ever since the creation of man. And his fall was steep ¾ especially since Christ's resurrection and ascension and the resultant (at least nominal) christianization of the Roman Empire previously dominated by Satan himself.

So the great star falling from the sky, and burning like a lamp, is probably Lucifer himself or one or more of his agents. The "rivers" and "fountains of waters" into which he fell, are probably the well-springs of Christianity.

Accordingly, this event of the star falling ¾ after the sounding of the third trumpet ¾ probably indicates Satan's pollution of the Christian message by poisoning the well-waters of the life-giving Gospel. As such, it would then refer to the terrible spread of Satanic heresies even on the fringes of the Christian Church herself ¾ throughout the Roman Empire.

This took place in particular during the first five centuries in Pseudo-Christian movements like judaizing Ebionism, paganizing Gnosticism, dematerializing Docetism, compromising Syncretism, dispensationalizing Marcionism, pseudo-glossolalic Montanism, mysticistic Mithraism, dualistic Manichaeanism, philosophistic Alexandrianism, and modalistic Sabellianism. It further occurred also in 'Jehovah-Witness'-like Arianism, assumptionistic Nestorianism, consubstantiationizing Eutychianism, ultra-arminianizing Pelagianism, and in Proto-Romanistic Semi-Pelagianism etc.

As the Geneva Bible comments, the 'bitter waters' here "signify false and corrupt doctrine." For all of those heresies, like poisoned wells, certainly killed many men ¾ spiritually.

Yet they polluted only a minority (or "a third") of the spiritual waters. This left the other two-thirds of the waters unpolluted ¾ for the enjoyment of the true Christian Church.

Eighth. John at this point next heard the fourth trumpet being blown. "Then the fourth Angel sounded. And the third part of the sun was smitten; and the third part of the moon; and the third part of the stars ¾ so that the third part of them was darkened. And the day did not shine, for a third part of it ¾ and the night likewise."

Here, the heavenly bodies (sun and moon and stars) were smitten ¾ though only the third of them. This probably refers to the eclipse of influential leaders in the civilized World at that time. For such astronomical symbols are frequently used to refer to ecclesiastical and political leaders.

As such, the prediction probably refers especially to the corruption of the but-recently-christianized Roman Empire ¾ with the "darkening" of its political and ecclesiastical leadership. Here one thinks of Julian the Apostate ¾ and particularly of the attacks of the Goths, the Huns and the Vandals; the fall of Rome to such Pagans; the later demise of Justinian; and the advent of the 'Dark Ages' at the beginnings of the rise of the Papacy.

Again, however, this "darkening" was only in part. For true Christianity, like Moses' burning bush, could not and cannot be consumed. Once illuminated by Christ the Light at the time of His incarnation ¾ the increasing irradiation of the World by the now-ignited bonfire of Christianity could not and cannot be extinguished.

Ninth. Even though Satan has tried to dowse both Christ the Light and also His Church's illuminating of men and women, such as during the 'Dark Ages' ¾ Christianity still continued to irradiate its surroundings. And though it then sometimes burned low indeed ¾ it would ultimately blaze up again as never before.

Indeed, the Protestant Reformation rekindled the fire of the Christian Church. And the ongoing establishment and expansion of Congregations in our own day, and tomorrow ¾ shall yet ignite the whole World like a bright torch, to the glory of God.

O Christian, may we too ¾ like Christ's seven Angels ¾ and even as Christ's seven Preacher-Angels in His Congregations ¾ not only pray to Him! May we also testify and give light to the World!

May we offer salvation in Christ to all who will repent ¾ and proclaim God's judgments to all who resist Him! And may we confidentially expect only one-third of those confronted, to reject His salvation ¾ and two-thirds to receive it!

Even as history unfolds from judgment to judgment, inexorably leading to the last and Great Assize ¾ it is always tempered with a double portion of God's mercy. For His saving purposes shall ultimately be fulfilled.

Finally, at the sound of the seventh trumpet ¾ the kingdom of this whole World shall become that of our Lord and of His Christ. And He shall then and thereafter keep on reigning, for ever and ever.

So on, then, Christian soldiers! Onward, to victory!

Revelation 9 December 11

The first trumpet heralded the weakening of Judaism by the Fall of Jerusalem in A.D. 70. The second, third and fourth announced grave challenges to Christianity ¾ by heresies and invasions. The Church lapsed into idolatry. So, as long-term correctives, next came the simultaneous start of the two most terrible scourges of the True Church ¾ Islam, and the Papacy.

In his magnificent book A History of the Work of Redemption, Princeton's President Rev. Prof. Dr. Jonathan Edwards explains: "The two great works of the devil which he...wrought against the Kingdom of Christ are...his Anti-christian [Papal or Romish] and Mahometan [Moslem or Islamic] kingdoms ¾ which have been, and still are, two kingdoms of great extent and strength. Both together swallow...up the Ancient Roman Empire; the kingdom of Antichrist swallowing up the Westerm Empire, and Satan's Mahometan kingdom the Eastern Empire.... In the Book of Revelation [chapters 16 to 20]...it is in the destruction of these that the glorious victory of Christ at the introduction of 'the glorious times of the Church' will mainly consist....

"1260 'days' or years...are so often in Scripture mentioned as the time of the continuance of Antichrist's reign.... The rise of Antichrist was gradual.... The Bishop of Rome...claimed the power of Universal Bishop over the whole Christian Church through[out] the World.... He...was confirmed in it by the civil power of the Emperor, in the year 606 [A.D.]....

"Mahomet was born in the year of Christ 570 in Arabia. When he was about forty years of age [and thus around 610 A.D.], he began to give forth that he was 'the great prophet' of God, and began to teach his new invented religion.... He published his Al Coran, which he pretended he received from the Angel Gabriel.... His party gradually grew, until they overran a great part of the World.

"First the Saracens...of the country of Arabia where Mahomet lived, about the year 700 began dreadfully to waste the Roman Empire.... These are supposed to be meant by the 'locusts' that we read of in the ninth chapter of Revelation. And then, after this, the Turks, who...were followers of Mahomet, conquered all the Eastern Empire. They began...to invade Europe 1300, and took Constantinople and so became masters of all the Eastern Empire in the year 1453.... These are supposed to be prophesied of by the 'horsemen' in the ninth chapter of Revelation."

Now after John had heard the fourth trumpet sound, he beheld and heard an angel-like eagle flying through the midst of the sky. It said with a loud cry: "Woe, woe, woe to the inhabitants of the Earth ¾ by reason of the other sounds of the trumpet of the three Angels which are yet to trumpeteer!"

Severe as the first four judgments were ¾ the remaining three judgments would be much more severe. Thus, they are each described in considerably greater detail than are the first four judgments. For the latter three judgments would fill the World ¾ with a threefold woe! And these woes ¾ comments the Geneva Bible ¾ represent "horrible threatenings against the infidels and rebellious persons."

First. The initial woe would start after the blowing of the fifth trumpet. That seems to herald the 'Dark Ages' ¾ commencing around 600 A.D.

"The fifth Angel sounded," wrote John. "I saw a star fall from the sky upon the Earth. And to him was given the key of the bottomless pit."

According to all expositors, the prototypical or original 'fallen star' was and is Satan. According to some, however, the particular 'fallen star' mentioned here, was Mohammad (570-632 A.D.). After his religious fall, he led his vast armies of unitarianized Arabs ¾ and also set an example to the later Islamic Turks in subsequent centuries ¾ not only against idolatry, but also against all forms of Trinitarian Christianity.

Second. Around 620 A.D., Mohammad apostasized from his own weak grasp or rather inadequate understanding of some of the heavenly revelations contained in the Holy Bible. Then, under the misdirection of that great "fallen star" called Satan ¾ and conceivably also at the promptings of demons ¾ Mohammad perhaps even spiritistically or mediumistically "opened up" the bottomless pit, and made smoke to rise up out of it.

For "he opened the bottomless pit. And there arose a smoke out of the pit, like the smoke of a great furnace. And the sun and the air were darkened by reason of the smoke of the pit."

This smoke, comments the 1560 Calvinistic Geneva Bible of John Knox and Mrs. John Calvin's brother-in-law William Whittingham, represents "abundance of heresies and errors, which cover Christ and His Gospel with darkness." This is a very good description of the views of Mohammad. For his theology was indeed an "abundance of heresies and errors." His views ¾ while claiming to be 'Biblical' ¾ actually "cover Christ and His Gospel with darkness."

The Calvinistic Dordt Dutch Bible of 1637 remarks: "Some understand this star to be Mohammad and his followers. They around 620 scraped together his ungodly doctrine ¾ which was brought forth from the bottomless pit ¾ from [perversions of] Judaism, Paganism and Christianity."

The well-known Scottish Presbyterian James Durham in his 1657 Complete Commentary upon the Book of Revelation observes: "This Mahomet lived a little before...the year 650." That was "a little after [Pope] Boniface the Third has assumed the title of Universal Bishop.

"He [Mahomet or Mohammad] was...a subtile fellow and no Christian, about the year 630. With the help of one Sergius a Nestorian monk, and Joannes Antiochenus an Arian, and some Jews ¾ he had begun to coin his blasphemous Al-Coran. Therein he endeavoureth a mixture of Paganism, Judaism and Christianity (but of the grossest kind viz. Arianism and Nestorianism)....

"He called himself 'the great Prophet' and blasphemously applied some Scriptures to that purpose. He allegeth: that his writings...were given him from Heaven and are without error and therefore joineth the Old Testament, the Gospe,l and the Alcoran together; that the refuters of the Alcoran are to be persecuted with the sword.... He asserteth one only true God, and denieth the Trinity of Persons.... He is against all idols and images, and allegeth himself to be specially commissionated against idol-worship. And it may be that God...purposed him indeed to scourge that sin," and thus "to make him the more instrumental in pursuing that sin ¾ partly more to convince and shame Christians addicted to it." So Islam rightly condemns the Church's idol-atry!

Yet in his own commentary on the Book of Revelation, Philip Mauro notes the evil character of Islam. He comments that, like Christianity, "Mohammadanism has a superman, and a book. It is a Satanic imitation of Christianity. It has spread over a great part of the christianized World.... Its founder was, without doubt, devil-inspired. Mohammed, the fallen star, opened the pit and let loose the darkening power of Satan; and he flooded the eastern part of the christianized Earth, and considerable portions of the western also, with doctrines which can justly be termed hellish in their nature and effects."

Third. In the wake of the false-prophecies of Mohammad himself, came the fearful spread of the apostate religion of Mohammadan-ism ¾ alias Islam. Prophesied John: "Out of the smoke, locusts came upon the Earth. And to them was given power ¾ like the scorpions of the Earth have power.... The shapes of the locusts were like horses prepared to battle; and on their heads were as it were crowns of gold.... They had tails like scorpions, and there were stings in their tails." Indeed, that power, comments the Geneva Bible, represents "false and deceitful doctrine which is pleasant to the flesh."

Clearly, these 'locust-scorpion' objects are no mere insects! For ordinary locusts have no king and wear no crown, whereas these extraordinary "locusts" had a leader. For "they have a king over them, who is the [fallen] Angel of the bottomless pit ¾ whose name in the Hebrew tongue is Abaddon, but in the Greek tongue has his name Apollyon" (alias 'Destroyer').

Again, this "king" strongly suggests not only Mohammad ¾ the alleged messenger or rasool of Allah (alias the unipersonal Deity of Islam). But to many Christian Theologians, it also suggests that the real influence behind Mohammad and Islam is Satan himself. Satan tried to be like God; and he pretends to be that Deity called Allah. Yet he remains only the Destroyer.

Strikingly, Allah is sometimes described by Moslems themselves as "the One Who brings damage" or "the One Who leads astray" or "the Bringer-down" or "the Tyrant." As such, this Moslem concept of Allah is really that of a great idol opposing the true Triune God (as Calvin too so aptly remarked).

Explained Calvin: "The Turks in the present day...proclaim...with full throat that the Creator of Heaven and Earth is their God ¾ yet by their rejection [of the Deity and Saviourhood] of Christ," they "substitute an idol in His place." That is to say, Allah is an idol substituted by Moslems in the place of the one and only true and Triune God.

Now very many Theologians indeed have considered the apostate religious movement started by the "fallen star" (at Revelation 8:1-14f) to be the beginning of the ongoing movement known as Islam. Some further see the same movement described at Revelation 16:12f as that of "the false-prophet."

This is the considered opinion of Pseudo-Methodius (675 A.D.), Beatus (790), Jephet ibn Ali Halevi (950), and Joachim of Floris (1191). It is the considered opinion also of: Luther (1522); Melanchthon (1543); Bullinger (1577); Foxe (1584); Napier (1593); Downham (1603); Brightman (1614); Pareus (1618); Davenport (1633); Mede (1637), John Cotton (1639), Parker (1646), Goodwin (1654), Durham (1657), Increase Mather (1669), Vitringa (1705), Matthew Henry (1712), Jonathan Edwards (1739), John Gill (1758), G.S. Faber (1806), Bickersteth (1836), Louis Gaussen (1837), Bishop Elliott (1845), Albert Barnes (1851), Apostolos Makrakis (1881), and Philip Mauro (1908).

Locusts often come up from the Arabian deserts. Mohammad unleashed his Arab "locusts" to scourge the Mediterranean World and to darken a large area of nominally-Christian civilization. For Mohammad's "locusts" ¾ similar to those in Joel's vision ¾ "were like horses prepared to battle."

Those horse-like "locusts" went forth unto conquest; in regal attire; with savage appearance; and armed to the teeth. "On their heads were as it were crowns of gold, but their faces were as the faces of men. And they had hair like women's hair, and their teeth were like lions' teeth. And they had breastplates like iron breastplates. And the sound of their wings was like the sound of chariots of many horses running unto battle."

For, as from A.D. 622, Mohammad's Arabian armies of Moslem horsemen swept not only northward and eastward ¾ but also westward across Christian North Africa and then on into Western Europe. Thus they terrorized the previously-'christianized' Armenia, Cyprus, Crete, Syria, Persia, Kazakstan, Babylonia, Arabia, Palestine, Egypt, Libya, Numidia, Mauretania, Sicily, Spain, Portugal, Sardinia, Corsica, and France ¾ until the great Charles Martel the 'Hammer' finally stopped them in A.D. 732 at the Battle of Tours in Northern France.

Sir William Muir points out in his book The Caliphate: "Like swarms from a beehive or like locusts darkening the air, the one Arabian tribe after the other emerged and rolled to the North, and then spread out in great hordes to the East and the West." Thus the Arab Moslems then almost totally wiped out the Christian Church ¾ all the way from Northern India to Northwest Africa.

Edward Gibbon's Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire says of Mohammad's successors: "They reigned by right of conquest over the nations of the East to whom the name of liberty was unknown and who were accustomed to applaud in their tyrants the acts of violence and severity that were performed at their own expense. Under the last of the Ommidades, the Arabian Empire extended two hundred days' journey from East to West ¾ from the confines of Tartary and India, to the shores of the Atlantic Ocean."

Barnes comments: "With surprising unanimity, commentators have agreed in regarding this as referring to the empire of the Saracens, or to the rise and progress of the religion and the empire set up by Mohammed.... Mohammedan tradition speaks of locusts having dropped into the hands of Mohammed.... Nothing would better represent...the Saracenic hordes that came out of Arabia ¾ and that spread over the East, over Egypt, Libya, Mauritania, Spain, and that threatened to spread over Europe."

Fourth. The nature of the mission of these "locusts" should clearly be understood. They did not ¾ as insect locusts do ¾ go forth to destroy crops or vegetation. Instead ¾ "it was commanded them that they should not hurt the grass of the Earth, neither any green thing, neither any tree, but only those men who do not have the seal of God upon their foreheads."

Nor did they go forth specifically to kill men, but rather hurt-fully or forcibly to convert them to a false religion ¾ and thus to torment their souls. Thus: "to them it was given that they should not kill them ¾ but that they [their victims] should be tormented, five months. "Now their torment was like the torment of a scorpion when it stings a man.... And they had tails like scorpions." Just like locusts, scorpions too are creatures of the Arabian desert. "And there were stings in their tails. And their power was to hurt men, five months."

This "five months," when construed strictly, is the average duration of a plague of locusts in the insect world. However, construed prophetically (according to the day-year principle of interpretation), it would imply five (thirty-day)U #1877 months of day-years ¾ alias about one hundred and fifty years or about a century and a half of sustained tormenting of their victims.

That very period, interestingly, corresponds exactly to that of Islam's pressures against Christian civilization from the rise of Mohammad (beginning at his first battle when only twenty years old in 590 A.D.) ¾ to the final arrest of those pressures by Charles the Hammer (in 732 A.D.). Thus, in general, the comments of: Brightman, Mede, Thomas Parker, Jurieu, Matthew Henry, Sir Isaac Newton, Gill, Backus, John Brown of Haddington, Winthrop, Faber, Thomas Scott, Fuller, Adam Clarke, Gaussen, Bickersteth, and Albert Barnes.

Fifth. "In those days [of the 'five months' or one hundred and fifty 'day-years'] men shall seek death, but shall not find it. They shall desire to die, but death shall flee away from them."

Even the Moslems themselves desired to die (and thus hoped to be transported into their falsely-imagined ideal place of a lascivious paradise). But, like zombies or the 'living dead' ¾ before they died, they were first obliged to wage their jihad or 'holy war' ¾ for their own destructive king, Abaddon-Appolyon-Allah.

Onward surged the Moslems. They were all fired up by the battle-cry of their caliphs: 'Before you is paradise; behind you are death and hell!' The Calvinistic Dordt Dutch Bible of 1637 insists that Mohammad's "ungodly doctrine...was propagated throughout a large part of the World by his Arabs and Saracens, who looked like armed locusts."

Sixth, however, even throughout the rise and expansion of Islam during the first century and a half of its existence ¾ it had no power in itself, but only God-given power. For Islam could inflict its spiritual torments only on unbaptized Non-Christians (such as Pagans, Jews, and Apostates). It could hurt "only those men who do not have the seal of God on their foreheads" and true faith in their hearts.

For as Jesus Christ Himself had promised: "He who keeps on believing and is baptized, shall be saved; but he who does not keep on believing, shall be condemned." Accordingly, those who truly believed in Jesus and who bore His seal of Baptism on their foreheads ¾ were spared all "hurt" at the hands of the Moslems. For even such true Christians as were then martyred, did not seek death ¾ yet found it (and thereby entered into everlasting life).

On the other hand, those Non-Christians whom the Moslems could and did hurt ¾ desired death, but could not find it. For as Non-Christians, those latter spiritual zombies were among the 'living dead' ¾ just like all baptized unbelievers and unbaptized unbelievers even today. "And in those days, men shall seek death ¾ but shall not find it. And they shall desire to die ¾ but death shall flee away from them."

Seventh. The scourge of Mohammad's Islam, though then arrested in its advance into Christian Western Europe in A.D. 732 ¾ and though subsequently expelled from Spain and the islands of the Mediterranean ¾ still continued to spread to other areas elsewhere. "One woe is past. But behold ¾ two more woes come after that!"

Having already reached Central Asia between A.D. 700 and 730, Islam next infiltrated even Western China in A.D. 755 ¾ and subsequently overwhelmed Afghanistan and the lands adjacent to it. Then, from around A.D. 1000, the Central Asian Turks (of Turkmenistan) not only spread Islam northward into Central Western Siberia and Southern Russia and the Ukraine. They spread it also southward throughout Northern India and thence eastward through Malaysia to the Philippines and to Indonesia.

Then, the Turks started moving especially westward ¾ across the River Euphrates, through the Holy Land, and into Asia Minor (alias the Asian part of the modern 'Turkey'). That latter expansion wiped out the nominal remnants of the seven Churches to which these very warnings in the Book of Revelation were originally addressed.

So despite almost two centuries of resisting the Christian 'Crusades' in Palestine against them from 1096 to 1291 ¾ the Turks had pushed on further toward the West. During that time, all the nominally-'Christian' armies were ultimately unsuccessful in trying to dislodge the Saracens from Palestine.

Thus "the sixth Angel sounded. And I heard a voice from the four horns of the golden altar which is in front of God, saying to the sixth Angel which had the trumpet: 'Loosen the four Angels which are bound to the great River Euphrates!' Then the four Angels were unleashed ¾ who were prepared for an hour and a day and a month and a year, to slay the third part of men."

Now this expression that the four Angels "were prepared for an hour and a day and a month and a year, to slay the third part of men" ¾ on the year-day principle, apparently refers to the length of prophetic time for the completion of this entire enterprise. It amounts to 391 natural years ¾ plus a further 15 natural days.

As Faber pointed out (in 1806): "The accurate accomplishment of this numerical prophecy, is singularly remarkable. The Turks, under Ortogrul, gained their first victory over the Greek Empire in the year 1281 ¾ by the conquest of Cutahi. In the year 1357, they crossed over into Europe.

"In the year 1453, they took Constantinople. And the remaining Provinces of the [Eastern Roman] Empire soon followed the fate of the capital. In the year 1669, they made themselves masters of Crete. And in the year 1672, they wrested Camenice, their last conquest, from the Poles. If now we compute 391 years from the year 1281 ¾ they will exactly bring us down to the year 1672."

The above view was widespread, both before and after Faber. Generally, it is that too of: Downham, Brightman, Mede, Parker, Durham, Goodwin, Increase Mather, Sherwin, Jurieu, Fleming, Cotton Mather, Daubuz, Sir Isaac Newton, Jonathan Edwards, Bishop Thomas Newton, John Gill, John Brown of Haddington, Winthrop, Thomas Scott, Fuller, James Angell Brown, Alexander Keith, Bickersteth, Louis Gaussen, Bishop Elliott, Albert Barnes, and J.P. Lange.

Thus the Scottish Presbyterian James Durham wrote in 1657: "We conceive this...to show that such would be instrumental in this plague as was neither within the Church nor the Roman Empire, but such as would have their residence beside this river Euphrates [Revelation 9:14 cf. 16:12f] ¾ as the Turks are observed to have had, before their dominion spread.... They are said to be loosed from that place...to destroy the waste part of the Christian World ¾ which accordingly came to pass very speedily, when the Turks having prevailed over the Saracens did with them combine in one dominion under the Ottomanean family, which was about 1000 years [A.D.] and some more ¾ from which time their power grew, till a great part of Europe was overrun by them....

"The Turks...have led the greatest armies, especially of horsemen, unto Europe.... A great part of Europe, being destroyed and overrun by the Turks, are sufficient evidences of the truth of this.... The Turks also...are not more terrible in their armies to the bodies of men ¾ than the pestiferous delusion of Mahomet is of itself hurtful and destructive to souls."

Continued the Apostle John: "Now the number of the army of the horsemen, were two hundred thousand thousand. So I heard the number of them. And thus I saw the horses in the vision, and them who sat on them, having breast-plates of fire and of jacinth and brimstone. And the heads of the horses were like the heads of lions. And from their mouths fire and smoke and brimstone went forth.

"By these three plagues, the third part of mankind was killed ¾ by the fire and by the smoke and by the brimstone which went forth from their mouths. For their power is in their mouth, and in their tails. For their tails were like serpents, and had heads ¾ with which they keep on causing pain."

It needs to be asked at this point whether "the fire" and "the smoke" and "the brimstone" which "went forth" from the "mouths" of these terrible attackers ¾ is a prediction of the Turks shooting shells propelled by gunpowder out of the mouths of their cannons. As Byron notes in his book The Byzantine Achievement: "The Fall of Constantinople...was the first event of historic importance engineered with the most important weapon of modern warfare: gunpowder.... If it was not for gunpowder, the siege of [Constantinople in] 1453 ¾ would have failed."

Nevertheless, not one of God's elect lost his salvation at the hands of the Turks ¾ nor indeed could do so. And very few of God's elect were killed by them. On the other hand, great numbers of unsaved and purely-nominal 'Church Members' were exterminated.

Eighth. It should be noted, however, that it was God in Christ Himself Who unleashed this Turkish scourge from the Euphrates against the West ¾ because of the Church's idolatry. For the Voice from the four horns of the golden altar, comments Knox's Geneva Bible, is "the Voice of Christ sitting at the right hand of the Father.... The four Angels which are bound in the great River Euphrates" mean "the enemies of the East Country who would afflict the Church of God ¾ as did the Arabians, Saracens, Turks, and Tartars."

Comments Mede: "The second woe coming up, summons the Turks against the Roman World...with many horsemen ¾ from the Euphrates where they had long been resisted." And Barnes: "The reference...to the Turkish power....[was] extending from the time of the[ir] first appearance...in the neighbourhood of the Euphrates, to the[ir] final conquest of Constantinople in 1453."

Now similar as the Turks were to the previous plague of Arabian "locusts" ¾ in fact, essentially a Moslem extension of that earlier Moslem scourge ¾ there were also certain differences. For the Islamic Turks did not merely hurt men without killing them (as did the Islamic Arabians). But they actually slew fully one-third or "the third part of men" ¾ in the eastern part of what was indeed at least a nominally-Christian Eastern-Orthodox Civilization.

Yet even here, there is no question of these Islamic Turks completely destroying genuine Christians! The most that Islam then destroyed, were many purely nominal and lifeless 'Members' of the deformed Eastern 'Church' ¾ itself tainted with the idolatrous principles of Babylon-on-the-Euphrates.

It is true that the Turks (reinforced by Mohammedan Mongols from A.D. 1250 onward) conquered Constantinople in A.D. 1453 ¾ and then overran parts of Russia and the Ukraine and Romania and Hungary and Austria, and the whole of the Crimea and Bulgaria and Yugoslavia and Albania and Greece. And it is also true that Islam, with its slave-traders, continued to march southward first through West Africa and then through East Africa and thereafter into Southern Africa. Nevertheless, the power of Islam peaked around A.D. 1560 ¾ just four years before the death of Calvin.

For its new advance into Central Europe from the East, was checked by the rise of Protestantism and the resulting Counter-Reformation (and even Semi-Reformation even of the Romish Church. In A.D. 1683, the Turks were defeated decisively at the Battle of Vienna. Subsequently, Islam slowly began to recede even in the Moslem parts of Eastern Europe and elsewhere ¾ until after the weakening of the West during the Second World War.

Sadly, since the Second World War, there are again signs of a revival and extension of Islam. Even before the twentieth century, many commentators on Revelation 16:15-17f & 19:20 (q.v.) predicted such a revival of Islam ¾ to be followed also by its downfall and the conversion of many Moslems to Christ.

That is why the 1643f Westminster Assembly's Directory for the Publick Worship of God urges Congregations to "pray for the propagation of the Gospel and Kingdom of Christ to all nations; for the conversion of the Jews, the fulness of the Gentiles, the fall of Antichrist, and the hastening of the Second Coming of our Lord; [and] for the deliverance of the distressed churches abroad from the tyranny of the antichristian faction and from the cruel oppressions and blasphemies of the Turk" etc.

It might certainly have been hoped that the Fall of Constantinople to the Moslem Turks in A.D. 1453 would have brought the nominally-christianized yet still-unreformed Europe to her senses. If only the Eastern-Orthodox, but especially the then-unharmed but nevertheless then-threatened Papal West, had then repented!

Yet "the rest of the men who were not killed by those [Islamic] plagues, still did not repent of the works of their hands so that they should cease worshipping demons and idols (of gold and silver and brass and stone and wood) which can neither see nor hear nor walk. Neither did they repent of their murders nor of their sorceries nor of their fornication nor of their thefts."

For even the Christian Church in Western Europe had become deformed by the tyranny of the Romish Papacy ¾ as described by John in his subsequent chapters. The nominal Church (both Eastern and Western) had become infested with the worship of (fallen) Angels and icons ¾ and with violence and witchcraft and lasciviousness and simonies. Also the Eastern-Orthodox Church ¾ even when under the tyranny of Islam ¾ did not repent of those sins.

The deformed Church still needed ¾ to be reformed! There would still have to be a progressive destruction not only of Eastern-Orthodox icons but even more so of the idolatrous Papal Tyranny by a Protestant Reformation!

That Protestant Reformation of the deformed Western Church, to liberate it from its Papal-Babylonish captivity ¾ commenced in 1517, between the Fall of Constantinople to the Turks in 1453 and the defeat of the Turks at Vienna in 1683. That Protestant Reformation was firmly established by the middle of the sixteenth century ¾ as the Turkish power was reaching its zenith.

Indeed, the Protestant Reformation was and is predestinated to reform the Church and to destroy the works of the false-prophet Mohammed and of all other false-prophets even down through all the subsequent centuries. For the Protestant Reformation ¾ in spite of all setbacks ¾ will continue to advance and to triumph during the remaining time of Earth's History.

That will keep on occurring, through the faithful preaching and application of the Word of God. It will continue ¾ until "the kingdom of the World has become that of our Lord and of His Christ; and [also thereafter,] He shall keep on reigning for ever and ever!"

O Christian, may we believers thank the Lord for our God-given faith in Christ ¾ and also praise the Lord that we have been baptized with the faith-affirming seal of the living God upon our foreheads! May we persuade also others to believe in the Lord ¾ and to receive His seal, believingly!

May we stand firm against Islam and all other false-prophecies (such as Romanism, Communism, Socialism and Humanism)! May we work for the Papalized Church's full liberation from its Babylonian captivity! May we call upon all men to repent!

May we ourselves clearly understand that history is on our side! Because history is controlled not by Satan, but by our Saviour. And His Kingdom is yet destined to cleanse and to absorb ¾ all of the kingdoms of this World. For His blessed reign shall continue to expand for ever and ever.

So on, then, Christian soldiers! Onward, to victory!

Revelation 10 December 12

At the end of his remarks on Revelation chapter nine and at the beginning of his remarks on Revelation chapter ten, Albert Barnes rightly comments: "The judgments which were brought upon the World by the Turkish invasions...wrought no repentance or reformation [of the Church].... The language here is strictly applicable to these things. 'Neither repented they of their murders, nor of their sorceries, nor of their fornication, nor of their thefts'....

"In the previous apocalyptic revelations...the history had been brought down...to the capture of Constantinople by the Turks..., A.D. 1453.... The sketches of history pertaining to the Roman Empire in the Book of Revelation [9:20f], have been made with surprising accuracy.... The same state of things continued subsequent to the plagues brought on by those invasions, which had existed before.... The same sins of superstition, idolatry, sorcery, murder, fornication and theft prevailed afterwards that had prevailed before...in the Romish Church.... The next event in the order of time, was the Reformation.... In the exposition of the chapter...the symbols are such as accord well with the great leading events of the Protestant Reformation."

Constantinople fell to the Islamic Turks in 1453. The new discovery of printing from movable type in Europe, took place in the following year. Thus the stage was set for the re-emergence of the religion of the Bible.

For the appearance of the Gutenberg Latin Bible of 1454, soon led to the publication of the Soncino Hebrew Old Testament in 1488. That in turn was followed by the publication of Erasmus's Greek New Testament in 1516 ¾ just one year before the resulting commencement of the Protestant Reformation under the able leadership of that great Bible Student, Rev. Dr. Martin Luther.

After his vision of the terrible onslaught against Eastern Orthodoxy's Christian Civilization by the Turks, John saw a "mighty Angel." This was apparently Christ Himself, seen as 'descending' spiritually from Heaven.

Wrote John: "Then I saw another mighty Angel come down from Heaven ¾ clothed with a cloud. And a rainbow was upon His head. And His face was like the sun ¾ and His feet like pillars of fire."

As the 1560 Calvinistic Geneva Bible rightly comments ¾ this 'mighty Angel' "was Jesus Christ. He came to comfort His Church against the furious assaults of Satan and Antichrist" ¾ especially via Islam and the Papacy.

After centuries of ecclesiastical stagnation during which the Bible had almost been forgotten, immediately subsequent to the invention of movable-type printing ¾ the Bible was once again made accessible at least in the ancient languages (Latin, Hebrew and Greek). But then, it still needed to be translated ¾ and preached in the various living languages of the common people.

The time and the means to do so, had now arrived. For the full reason for Christ's incarnation and the outpouring of His Spirit after His ascension and heavenly session ¾ namely His Church's execution of His programme for the Christian conquest of the World ¾ could now be re-explained. This is what Christ now came to tell His Apostle John ¾ and, via John, to tell all of His Servants and especially all of His Ministers of the Word.

Now this programme of World Christianization was to be executed through the publication of Christ's Book ¾ the Bible ¾ among men. So ¾ according to the Geneva Bible, Albert Barnes, Mauro, Lenski, and B.H. Carroll ¾ John now recorded how he saw that Christ Himself had an open Bible in His hand, and how a heavenly voice told His Church to "go and take the...Book [or Biblion or Bibla-ridion] which had been opened, in the hand of the Angel" Christ.

Comments the Calvinistic Dordt Dutch Bible: "Some take this to mean the Book of the Gospel, which, at the time Antichrist was at its highest ¾ was like a closed book to the Church. But from the time onward that the Turks broke loose against Christianity, as seen in the previous chapter, it was once again more and more opened up, and more plainly presented to the Church ¾ by several exceptional men of God" (such as Luther and Calvin etc.).

John (like any other Minister of the Word) was required to take the Bible and to preach it to all who would listen. So John "took the Biblion out of the Angel's hand, and ate it up" ¾ thus thoroughly absorbing it into his very existence. Then the mighty Angel Jesus Christ said to John: "You must prophesy again before many peoples and Nations and tongues and Kings!"

Right after the 1453 invention of movable-type printing, Christ made His Book available to His Church as never before. The reading and preaching of that Bible then produced the Protestant Reformation. Thus Philip Mauro and B.H. Carroll. And the reading and preaching of that same Book ¾ will still produce and maintain an ongoing Reformation in our own day too.

Next, Christ Himself sovereignly opened and explained the Bible to His Apostle John ¾ even as He still sovereignly opens and explains the Bible to us today, and just as He had also sovereignly opened the seven seals of His bookroll. For "He had in His hand an opened Bibla-ridion. And He set His right foot upon the Sea, and His left foot on the Earth" ¾ and "lifted up His hand to Heaven."

Unto Him, the Son of man, all power in Heaven and on Earth has now been given ¾ even from His resurrection onward. As the Second Adam, He has begun to subdue the Cosmos. Consequently, even as man, He now controls the Earth and the Sea and the Sky and everything in them ¾ subduing them all, and having dominion over all of their contents, solely to the glory of God.

So He commissions and enjoins all His Bible-receiving Ministers of the Word: "Keep on going therefore, and make all Nations into disciples; baptizing them into the Name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit; teaching them to observe all things whatsoever I have commanded you! And look! I am with you always ¾ even unto the end of the World. Amen."

In other words, Jesus in essence here says to all His Ministers of the Word: 'You must keep on going into the whole World! As My Preacher-Angels, you must keep on baptizing all Nations upon their foreheads with the seal of the living Triune God! You must then keep on instructing them ¾ so that they may overcome the whole World and stand firm against all of the woes and plagues which will come upon the children of dis-obedience!'

Whenever God's Word, the Holy Bible, is believingly preached by Christ's Ministers of the Word ¾ the Lord Himself speaks through them. So Christ "cried out with a loud voice, as when a lion roars. And when He had cried out, seven thunders uttered their voices."

Now when Christ the Lion of Judah here read and preached from His own blessed Book ¾ it sounded like a perfect or sevenfold series of thunderclaps in a mighty storm. Similarly, when Christ's Ministers of the Word read and preach from His Scriptures today in the power of His sevenfold Spirit, they too should thunder forth the Word of God against all iniquity. For as the Geneva Bible rightly comments: "The whole graces of God's Spirit [here] bend themselves against Antichrist."

Fifth. These seven thunders seem to be connected to the seven seals and especially to the seven trumpets. As such, these thunderous messages seem to be warnings of lightning-like destruction to the impenitent ¾ while also promising good illumination and the repeated refreshments of reviving rains and thundershowers to the penitent. This occurs right down throughout Church History ¾ from Christ's ascension, to His Second Coming in Final Judgment.

As John declared: "When the seven thunders had uttered their voices..., the Angel which I saw standing upon the Sea and upon the Earth lifted up His hand to Heaven. Then He [that Angel] "swore by Him Who keeps on living for ever and ever, Who created Heaven and the things in it and the Earth and the things in it and the Sea and the things in it ¾ that there would no longer be a time" of delay. But in the days of the voice of the seventh Angel [yet to come], when he shall begin to sound [his trumpet], the mystery of God would be finished ¾ as He had declared to His Servants the Prophets."

Now this "mystery" which is to be finished after the time of the blowing of the seventh trumpet is not the end of World History. Rather will it mark the earlier end of "the domination of Antichrist" (thus the Calvinistic Geneva Bible of John Knox and Mrs. John Calvin's brother-in-law Dr. William Whittingham). Too: Brown of Haddington; Bishop Thomas Newton; and D'Oyly & Mant.

Matthew Henry and Jenks's Comprehensive Bible and Albert Barnes refer it to the downfall of Papal Rome. Indeed, Matthew Poole and Thomas Scott and B.H. Carroll refer it further to the subsequent dawn of a 'World Jubilee' of great earthly blessings.

Sixth. John was told himself to preach from the opened Book or Biblion ¾ from which Christ Himself was then apparently reading so thunderously. The Apostle was first himself to assimilate that Biblion into his own very existence. Then he was to go and declare all of its warnings and its promises to others ¾ even as modern Preachers are to do, also today.

For the preaching of God's Word reveals the sovereignty of the Lord and of His Christ. It is to declare His absolute control over the Earth and the Sea and the Sky and all that is in them ¾ even while God shakes the World in one judgment after the other.

For the kingdom of this World even now already belongs to God ¾ namely in principle ¾ because Christ created and redeemed it. Therefore it is ¾ progressively ¾ to become His in practice too.

Seventh. The time of the commencement of this new preaching of God's Word ¾ the time between the sounding of the sixth trumpet and the sounding of the seventh trumpet ¾ is very significant. Just previously, the sixth trumpet had announced the unleashing of the Islamic Turks from about 1000 A.D. onward ¾ whose power reached its zenith and then began to wane during the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries.

Albert Barnes comments that all this took place at the very point in time the invention of movable-type printing had promoted the publication of the Bible. That produced the Reformation of the Islamitically-threatened and papally-deformed Church.

Also Mauro explains: "The question will naturally arise as to the time indicated by the loud voice of the mighty Angel and the seven thunders.... What marked this event outwardly, was the Protestant Reformation. That great event took place at the time the waning of the Turkish power began....

"There began at that time (sixteenth century), the era of the prophesying anew concerning peoples and Nations and tongues and many Kings. For certainly it was a new era of: the preaching of the Word of God; the separation of the true from the untrue in the House of God; and the final testimony of God by His two witnesses (the 'Law' and the 'Prophets' of Revelation eleven)....

"At that time also, there was a great and wonderful revival of learning. The invention of printing by means of movable type...gave us the printing press...[and] coincided with the translation of the Holy Scriptures out of the original languages, Hebrew and Greek, into the vernacular ¾ English and German ¾ with results that have been incalculably great.

"From that day to the present, the diffusion of the knowledge of the Bible has continued.... The printing press...is working toward the accomplishment of the purposes of God.... Most certainly, therefore, the era of the Reformation was one of the greatest of the entire dispensation [of History], and hence well deserving of a place in this prophecy" of John.

Great linguists in the Biblical languages, fled to Western Europe after Constantinople fell to the Turks in 1453. The Gutenberg Latin Bible appeared in 1455, followed by many other editions first in Greek and Hebrew and then (during the sixteenth century) in the common languages of Europe.

The Protestant Reformation was the predictable result. For as people read and heard the Bible preached to them as the Word of God in their own mother-tongues, the errors of Romanism became more and more apparent.

Thus the power of the Papacy was checked, and then began to decline. Indeed, with the widespread circulation and study of the now 'opened' Biblion or the small and easily-transportable Bible printed in the common tongues of Western Europe, the resulting Protestant Reformation spread like wildfire.

It started just two weeks after Luther nailed the Ninety-five Theses on the door of Wittenberg Cathedral in 1517. And this Protestant Reformation shall yet continue, even today ¾ until the Church of Jesus Christ is purged from the "mystery" of its Babylonish-Romish impurities, and until the kingdom of this World has become that of our Lord and of His Christ.

Last. Christ instructed John to "eat" and then to preach His Book. This involves the instruction also of His other Servants (or Ministers of the Word of God) ¾ to preach the canonical book(s) to all men everywhere who are willing to listen to it.

Said the Mighty Angel to John: "'Go and take the Biblion...and eat it up!' ... Then He said to me: 'You must prophesy again before many peoples and Nations and tongues and Kings!'"

As Hengstenberg challengingly comments: "We too must eat and even swallow it; not some choice portion of it, but the whole; not only that which is agreeable to ourselves, like those who separate the Gospel from the Law." And this whole counsel of God must be preached not just to each Nation as a whole but also even to the Kings alias the Political Leaders of every Nation.

It is therefore not just to a few little groups of enthusiasts here and there, but rather especially to many peoples and Nations that God's Word is to be proclaimed ¾ in many tongues and languages. Matthew 28:19. And it is not just to the dregs of society, but indeed particularly also to kings and Political Leaders that the Word of God is to be preached.

Thus Luther preached it to the Holy Roman Emperor Charles the Fifth ¾ and Calvin proclaimed it to Francis King of France. For it is in this way that the de-formed Church is to become re-formed. This is how Christ's rule is to be expanded. For it is in this manner that His Kingdom is to come with power ¾ here on Earth, as it is in Heaven.

The comments of the Geneva Bible on this tenth chapter of the Book of Revelation, are very instructive. The 'Book' is "the Gospel of Christ which Antichrist cannot hide." Christ the Angel's crying out 'with a loud voice' through His Preachers, "declares that despite Antichrist the Gospel would be preached through all the World ¾ so that the enemies shall be astonished."

Just as 'the Voice...from Heaven' spoke to John, so too does Christ the Word enjoin "true Preachers to discover [or expose] the Pope and Antichrist." And Christ's injunction for John to 'prophesy again among the...Nations...and to many Kings' was "not only meaning [to prophesy] in his [John's] lifetime ¾ but that this Book [also] after his death should be as a preaching unto all Nations."

O Christian, may we too ever believe that Christ exerts all sovereignty over the Earth and the Sea and the Sky and everything in them ¾ even here and now! May we, like John, love Christ's Book ¾ the Bible! Like John, and like Luther and Calvin after John, may we too assimilate the contents of Holy Scripture ¾ until it verily becomes bone of our bone and flesh of our flesh!

May we too ¾ as did they ¾ then fearless proclaim its contents to many Nations, and even to their Kings or Political Leaders! May we warn them to turn from their sins ¾ or otherwise to receive the thunderous judgments of God, and perish! And may we keep on doing all of this without ceasing ¾ till the kingdom of this World has become that of our God and of His Christ!

So on, then, Christian soldiers! Onward, to victory!

Revelation 11:1-13 December 13

Christ had just armed John with the 'Canon' of the Biblion alias the Word of God (thus Lenski). In this way, John had been given a 'Canonical' Reed or Measuring-rod with which to measure the exact dimensions of the True Church here on Earth (which had been so pestered with heresies from within and assaults from without ever since the sounding of the third trumpet).

Already the Church had been weakened by the emerging Papacy. Now, after the subsequent scourges of the Moslem Arabs and the Islamic Turks, she was further afflicted with the horrible corruptions of Mediaeval Romanism. Thus it was that she now fell into desperate need ¾ of Reformation.

This Reformation would be brought about through the instrumentality of Christ's Biblion ¾ our 66-book Bible. This was and is the only 'Canon' or Measuring-rod ¾ in all matters of faith and conduct in the Zion of the Holy Christian Church.

Right after the discovery of movable-type printing in fifteenth-century Europe, the Bible quickly began to be published in its original tongues ¾ and also in the languages of the peoples of the West. Consequently, the very widespread circulation of Holy Scripture at the beginning of the sixteenth century ¾ was soon destined to produce the blessed Protestant Reformation of the then-deformed Church. For as the Calvinistic Geneva Bible rightly comments, the phrase '[measure or] mete the Temple of God!' signifies and "declares that Christ Jesus will build His Church; and not have it destroyed!"

Rightly does Albert Barnes comment: "The command to 'measure the Temple of God'...was a direction to take an estimate of what constituted the True Church ¾ the very work which it was necessary to do in the Reformation! For this was the first point which was to be settled, whether the Papacy was the True Church, or was the Antichrist....

"The Refomers made up their minds that the Papacy was [certainly] not the True Church.... The Papacy had exalted the Lord's Supper into a real sacrifice.... The altar in the Romish communion had...displaced the pulpit.... It claimed to be the True Church.... But it had the essential characteristics of Heathenism.... Can anyone doubt the truth of this representation as applicable to the Papacy?"

Jesus Christ the Angel of the Covenant commanded John to determine the true scope of the real Church here on Earth (as opposed to its merely visible aspect). Nominal Mediaeval Christendom would indeed be corrupted by Romish papal sins and Eastern-'Orthodox' icons from within ¾ even as it would be harried by the assaults of Islam from without. So John was now predictively to evaluate nominal Mediaeval Christianity ¾ against the Standard alias the Canonical Measuring-rod of the Word of God.

The Apostle John thus records about the Bible which he saw in his vision: "I took the Bibla-ridion out of the hand of the Angel, and ate it up.... Then He [the mighty Angel] said to me: 'You must prophesy again before many peoples and Nations and tongues and Kings!'

"Then there was given me a Reed, like a Measuring-rod. Then the Angel stood and said: 'Rise, and measure the 'Temple of God' [or the 'True Church'], and the 'Altar' [alias the 'True Clergy'], and those who worship there [alias the 'True Laity']! But leave out and do not measure the 'Court' [alias the 'Courtyard'] ¾ which is outside the Temple!" Do not measure that 'Nominal Christendom' which was outside of the True Church of Christ during the Middle Ages! "For it has been given to the Pagans. And they shall tread under foot the 'Holy City' [or the 'True Church'] ¾ forty-two months."

Now this 'forty-two months' of downtreading has nothing at all to do with any persecution of the Ancient Jews (thus many Preterists). Also, it has nothing to do with any possible future desecration of any building in the modern land of Israel (thus many Futurists). Quite to the contrary, this forty-two months seems to refer to the mediaeval period of the Papacy's 'Babylonian captivity' of the True Church Universal ¾ meaning the 'Holy City' under the enduring "Semi-Pagan" power of the Romish yoke (thus most Historicalists).

Here, the comment of the Calvinistic Geneva Bible of John Knox and Mrs. John Calvin's brother-in-law William Whittingham ¾ is extremely significant. It points out that the 'Temple' and the 'Holy City' signify the true "Church of God." And it identifies the 'Court[yard]' with the Mediaeval Visible Church of the Romanists. It states that such "adversaries of Christ boast that they are in the Temple; and that none are of the Temple, but they!"

The Calvinistic Dordt Dutch Bible is even more specific. It comments that this 'Holy City' is "the Visible Church, which was here being depicted by Jerusalem." That 'Holy City' was now occupied and trampled down by the idolators who glory in the title of 'The Temple of God' and 'The Holy Church' ¾ but who suppress the True Church. Consequently, by the 'Outer Court[yard]' is meant those who have the most fame and respect in the kingdom of Antichrist or among their clergy."

Consequently, the 'forty-two months' during which the Holy City is trodden under foot, corresponds to the three-and-a-half "years" ¾ the one "time" plus the two "times" plus "the dividing" of a time. This yields one half of the perfect number seven ¾ the time during which the stout and arrogant Roman horn would wield power in its papal persecution of true Christians (according to the predictions of Daniel).

As stated in Revelation eleven, this 'forty-two months' amounts to exactly one thousand two hundred and sixty days. These '1260 days' seem to be day-years, and hence 1260 years or just over twelve-and-a-half centuries ¾ according to the 'day-year' principle of predictive interpretation. Thus the Classic Historicalists Joachim of Floris, Eberhard of Salzburg, Wycliffe, Osiander, John Bale, Flaccius Illyricus, Funck, Conradus, Nigrinus, the Dordt Dutch Bible, Napier, Brightman, Pareus, Mede, John Cotton, Gerhardt, Alsted, Jurieu, Matthew Henry, Bishop Thomas Newton, Albert Barnes, Apostolos Makrakis and many others.

This Classic Historicalist position was strongly advocated also by the greatest of all of the Protestant Reformers, John Calvin himself. He remarks that "the Spirit exhorts believers to prepare themselves for the exercise of patience...through an uninterrupted period of many ages.... For it is customary with men in adversity to compute time not by years or months but by days ¾ a single day being, in their estimation, equal to a year....

"At the present time in the Papacy and throughout the whole World, impiety prevails so extensively that there is scarcely a single corner in which the majority agree in true obedience to God.... I do not hesitate to suppose the Angel to promise the arrival of a period when God should collect many disciples to Himself, although at the beginning they should be very few and insignificant.... Yet God should gather to Himself a great multitude.... The sons of God shall soon become increased.... The Lord will at length cause many to embrace it to their own salvation....

"Men must wait for 'the time, [two] times, and half-a-time'.... I have stated my objection to the opinion of those who think one year and two and a half [years], to be here intended.... Its meaning is very simple. 'Time' means a long period; 'times,' a longer period.... The 'half-a-time' is added for the comfort of the pious, to prevent their sinking under the delay.... The sum of the whole is this ¾ many years must elapse before God fulfils what His Prophet had declared.

"I admit the allusion to years.... The words are not to be understood literally, but metaphorically.... How sad is the dispersion of the Church in these days! God indeed defends it.... Yet the end would be prosperous.... The Angel, then, purposely puts 'days' for years, implying...that time may seem immeasurably prolonged.... Yet it must be endured... After God has sufficiently proved the patience of His People...and has humbled His Church and purged it...the end shall arrive." See Westminster Larger Catechism 191.

Even more strongly, the Calvinistic Dordt Dutch Bible comments that "the 'days' mean whole years, as in [Numbers 14:34 and] Ezekiel 4:5f and Daniel 9:24. Some compute the beginning of those years from the year 606, when the Bishop of Rome for the first time took over the title of Bishop of the whole Christian Church (which is peculiar only to Christ)."

The Preterists, however, take the 1260 'day-years' to mean regular days. Hence, they suppress its major prediction of the papal apostasy ¾ and apply it instead exclusively to the three-and-a-half years during which the Pagan Romans besieged Judaistic Jerusalem between A.D. 66.5 and 70.

Yet, while the latter may well be the first root of this particular prediction ¾ it is hardly the mature outgrowth. In context, only the Classic Historicalist or Protestant view of these verses against the centuries-long papal desecration of the True Christian Church ¾ does proper justice to it.

Now this period of 1260 years of papal persecution of the Church, began inconspicuously in the early centuries. Then the 'downtreading' increased from the seventh and peaked in the thirteenth century ¾ as the Papacy gradually rose to prominence. Yet that period began to end from the fourteenth through the twenty-first centuries ¾ as the Papacy gradually dwindled and yet keeps on dwindling ¾ whenever bravely challenged by the powerful preaching of the Word of God.

Nevertheless, even throughout the time of maximum papal persecution ¾ Christ would still have His faithful 'Proto-Protestant' or 'Pre-Reformational' and 'Continuing-Christian' Preacher-Witnesses. For, as the Lord Himself declared to John: "I will give power to My two witnesses, and they shall prophesy ¾ one thousand two hundred and sixty days."

These "two witnesses" have been given various identities. Sometimes they have been associated with Enoch and Elijah; with the Law and the Prophets; or with the Old and the New Testaments. Perhaps most commentators, however, associate these "two witnesses" with the testimony of Christian Ministers before and at and after the Protestant Reformation ¾ or alternatively with the witness of the Church of all ages.

The Calvinistic Dordt Dutch Bible here truly comments that by these witnesses "are to be understood several excellent Preachers whom God raised up at different times here and there in His Church ¾ during this time of the kingdom of the Antichrist.... Such were Waldo and Peter Bruys in France; Wyclif and Purvey in England; John Huss and Jerome of Prague in Bohemia.... God was pleased to raise up Luther and Melanchthon in Germany; Zwingli and Oecolampadius in Switzerland; Farel and Calvin in France; and more others in their place ¾ who finished off their testimony with more power, and caused to fall a large part of that 'Babylon' whose total fall and destruction shall be predicted hereafter."

Encouragingly, Christ told John that the harried Church would be revived mightily at the end of its 1260 day-year ordeal. This 'revival' can now be seen to have started to take place at the end of the True Church's 'Babylonian Captivity' for many centuries.

For in the Protestant Reformation and thereafter, the Church is more and more being gripped by the Word of God. Indeed, wherever Protestantism thrives ¾ the Church is increasingly delivered from the power of the Papacy.

John indeed saw that the 'Outer Court[yard]' of the Church would be desecrated first by the Roman and then by the Romish "Gentiles." That is to say, the Mediaeval Church would be desecrated by the Romish Papists (and also by repeated attacks from Moslems). Yet the Apostle was also given to understand that the Gentile 'Court[yard]' would be outside the true 'Temple of God' alias the regenerate Church.

So the Apostle John was to "leave out" [or even 'cast out'] the Gentile 'Court[yard].' He was not to measure it" together with the 'Temple of God' as if it formed part of the True Church. For it was only a "sham church" or a "false church."

As Rev. Prof. Dr. Martin Luther pointed out: "The shameful Mohammed with his companions the Saracens...inflicted a great plague on the Church.... Along with this" comes "the 'holy' Papacy with its great 'spiritual' show ¾ the masses. They [viz. both the Moslems and the Papists] lay hold upon the Temple...and start a sham church or outward 'holy place.'"

This is exactly how also John Calvin regarded Romanism. Yet the great Genius of Geneva did not regard Roman Catholicism as a Non-Christian religion (like Judaism or Islam). Nor did he regard Romanism as a legitimate branch of the True Church (such as Lutheranism or Presbyterianism). Instead, Calvin regarded Romanism as a 'false church' ¾ ecclesia falsa ¾ as God's Temple's 'Outer Court[yard]' polluted by the 'Gentiles' alias the Romish Papists.

This is why John measured only "the Temple of God and the altar and those who worship there." He did not measure the 'Outer Court[yard]' desecrated by the Roman and/or Romish Gentiles (and also by the Moslem Gentiles).

Yet the final fulfilment of the prediction was sure. For ultimately the thus-measured and the thus-purged true Christian Church shall grow, till it is plenteously populated and the 'Holy City' of 'Jerusalem' shall be inhabited like towns without walls because of the multitude of men and cattle in it.

O, that we also today would realize that the 'casting out' of desecrating persons from the bosom of our Lord's Church ¾ ultimately strengthens her! It does not weaken her (even numerically). For the cleansing of the sanctuary of the Christian Church will always result ¾ in her revival!

Christ next revealed to John that the two true witnesses would faithfully and effectively testify about the Saviour's Lordship throughout the period of the Babylonian captivity of the 'Holy City.' They would continue to proclaim God's Word right there ¾ in spite of the defilement of the Temple's 'Outer Court[yard]' by the Roman-Romish Gentiles.

It is difficult to reconcile the above from the Preterist point of view. For Christ Himself predicted that all Hebrew Christians would have left Jerusalem by 66.5 A.D. before the beginning of its besiegement and later destruction at the hands of the Romans. From the Historicalist point of view, however, the two witnesses who stay within the 'Jerusalem' of the Late-Mediaeval Church would very suitably represent Pre-Reformers like Wycliffe and Huss etc.

Thus the 'Outer Court[yard]' would be "given to the Gentiles.... The 'Holy City' [and 'Zion' of Christ's Church], they shall tread under foot ¾ forty-two months. But I will give power to my two witnesses; and they shall prophesy, clothed in sackcloth, a thousand two hundred and sixty days."

Here we should think not merely of specific Pre-Protestant witnesses such as the Waldensians and Savanarola etc. Nor should we think exclusively of specific witnesses among the early Protestants, such as Luther and Calvin and the early Lutherans and the early Calvinists. But here we should rather think of all the papally-unaccredited "sackcloth" Preachers like Enoch (even before the Great Flood) ¾ and like Gottschalk (from the earliest rise of the Papacy in the past, right down to its uttermost fall in the yet-future).

For all such God-sent Preachers received, or shall yet receive, God-given "power" to 'prophesy' ¾ that is, to declare the Word of God to all who will listen. In the power of the Holy Spirit, they are the flames ¾ kept burning with God's supply of olive oil ¾ which illuminate the Earth and emit the fiery judgment-preachings of God in the midst of a sin-darkened people. Post tenebras, lux ¾ 'after the darkness' of Romanism, comes 'the light' of the Reformation!

Preaching the Law and the Prophecies, these two 'Protestant' witnesses "pro-test" or "witness for" the truth. They declare the Law, like Moses; and the Prophecies, like Elijah. They promise salvation to all those who heed and they promise destruction to all those who disobey ¾ their God-given messages.

As the Geneva Bible comments: "By the 'two witnesses' he means all the Preachers that would build up God's Church ¾ alluding to Zerubbabel and Jehoshua. They were appointed chiefly for this thing ¾ and also to the saying 'In the mouth of two witnesses, every word stands!'"

May we too, then, faithfully continue this twofold witness of promoting the message of the Law and the Prophets! May we do so ¾ even today!

Now the Non-Christian religions (represented by Judaism and Islam) and the false ecclesiastical establishment (represented by the Romish Papacy and the icon-honouring Eastern-"Orthodox" communions) ¾ are never able to silence the testimony of Christ's true 'Protestant' emissaries for the Word of God. For, although desiring to expunge that testimony ¾ Judaism and Islam and the Papists and the Eastern-"Orthodox" (as instruments in the 'left' hand of God) can ultimately only promote it (yet unwillingly and unwittingly).

Meantime, we are told about "the Beast that ascends from the bottomless pit." This probably represents the power of various anti-christian politico-religious establishments (including Islam), but also and especially the Romish Papacy. Thus the Geneva Bible comments ¾ as too do many other authorities ¾ that 'the Beast' who comes out of the 'bottomless pit' is "the Pope, who has his power from hell and who comes thence." So too Albert Barnes.

It is also true that this "Beast shall make war against" Christ's true emissaries, and "shall overcome them and kill them." Yet the bodies of Christ's true witnesses do not remain in the Romish Babylon or on the street of "the great city which spiritually is called 'Sodom-and-Egypt' where also our Lord was crucified."

What, then, is this 'Sodom-and-Egypt'? It is not actually either the city of Sodom nor the land of Egypt ¾ nor both together. For our Lord was crucified neither in the actual Sodom nor in the actual Egypt, but in the actual Jerusalem. Nor does the inspired John say Christ was crucified in the actual Sodom ¾ nor in the actual Egypt. To the contrary. The inspired John clearly says that the place where our Lord was crucified is not actually but rather "spiritually" indeed "called 'Sodom-and-Egypt.'"

Now the righteous Lot did not remain in Sodom. Nor did either Moses or God's Ancient People remain in Egypt. Nor during the first century did the true Hebrew Christians remain in the 'Sodom-and-Egypt' of the judaized Jerusalem "where also our Lord was crucified." Nor did Gentile Christians later remain in the islamized 'Egypt' of the Dark Ages. And neither would God's true witnesses remain in the "Sodom" and "Egypt" and "Babylon" and Pseudo-Jerusalem of Papal Rome "where also the Lord was crucified" and keeps on being crucified afresh by Romish priests every time they celebrate their so-called 'mass' several times a day.

God's true People, then, do not remain in the papal Sodom-and-Egypt. For there one finds especially its 'mass'-ive ongoing crucifixion and de facto re-crucifixion of the Saviour.

The great Calvinistic Geneva Bible of Rev. John Knox and Mrs. John Calvin's brother-in-law Rev. Dr. William Whittingham, here makes some extremely luminous comments. It says that the great city which spiritually is called 'Sodom-and-Egypt' means "the whole jurisdiction of the Pope. This is compared to Sodom, for their abominable sin ¾ and to Egypt, because the true liberty to serve God is taken away from the faithful. And Christ was condemned by Pilate, who represented the Roman power which would be[come] enemy to the godly."

Also the Calvinistic Dordt Dutch Bible here comments that "by this, the city of Rome is to be understood. That is sufficiently enough declared by the Angel himself in Revelation 17:9-18. It is 'spiritually'...called 'Sodom' on account of the immorality which is settled there; 'Egypt' on account of its suppression of God's People; and 'where also our Lord was crucified' because just as Christ Himself was crucified by the Roman Stadtholder, He is also yet today similarly being crucified in His Members by the Romish hierarchy."

So God's children and His true witnesses do not remain within the Romish Babylon and the Papacy's Sodom-and-Egypt. At the end of the 1260 years ¾ Barnes asserts at the Lateran Council in 1513 ¾ the True Church "dies" temporarily. But three-and-a-half "days" or day-years later, during 1517, the True Church is resurrected from the dead at the start of the Reformation.

Accordingly, at the dawn of the Protestant Reformation, the True People of God's previous 1260 "years"-long testimony lives again ¾ in 1517. It is revived or resurrected, and powerfully strengthened, by "the Spirit of life from God" only three-and-a-half day-years after their 1514 "death." Then, after 1517, it even continues ¾ right down throughout all subsequent Church History. For the blood of the martyrs is indeed the seed of the Church.

For John then further explains that "after three-and-a-half days, the Spirit of life from God entered into them. And they stood upon their feet. And great fear fell upon those who saw them."

Hence, after fully 1260 years of testimony for Christ, there arrives just a few "days" of silence ¾ from 1514 until 1517. But this would soon be followed by an age-long and indestructible testimony ¾ for the truth of the most holy Word of God.

Explained Jesus to John: "My two witnesses...ascended into Heaven with a cloud. Then their enemies beheld them. And the same hour there was a great earthquake. And the tenth part of the city fell, and seven thousand men were slain.... But the rest [alias the nine-tenths of the city left over after the slaying of seven thousand of its inhabitants] were terrified ¾ and gave glory to the God of Heaven."

Now this Protestant "revival" of true witnessing for God's Word some time after the apparent "death" of such witnessing for a mere three-and-a-half "days" or years (following the end of the 1260 "days" or years), has four important results. First, it rejuvenates a "dead" Protestantism with the bold prophetic Spirit of the living God ¾ and infuses great fear into its opponents. Second, it exalts Protestantism to a position of 'heavenly' rulership over the Earth in the presence of its enemies. Third, it is accompanied by an earthquake-judgment from God which slays only "seven thousand men" and destroys barely one-tenth of the great city of the 'Holy Roman Empire' (sic) or "the power of Antichrist" (thus the Geneva Bible). And fourth, it then seems to convert the remaining nine-tenths to Protestantism.

On this rejuvenation of a "dead" Protestantism the Dordt Dutch Bible comments that the slain "two witnesses" were to be followed by "the greater power and glorifying of those witnesses by those who replace them. The latter in turn are followed by yet others who are strengthened also by the power of the civil government in [Lutheran] Germany, [Huguenot] France, [Puritan] England, [Presbyterian] Scotland, [Calvinistic] Switzerland, the [Reformed] Netherlands, and other parts of the World ¾ notwithstanding all the force of the Antichrist. This has...been accomplished and is still being perfected."

The "great earthquake" is associated by some, with the 1300 A.D. great earthquake in Rome. Indeed, from 1309-76, Romanism's Popes (or 'Anti-popes') were all French and then operated not from Rome in Italy ¾ but from Avignon in France. That was certainly 'earth-shattering.'

Yet because it is said to occur "at the same time" as the 'ascension' of the two faithful 'witnesses' ¾ many Theologians have identified it with the later and much greater "earthquake" of the Anti-Romish Protestant Reformation of 1517f. And truly, the Protestant Reformers indeed did shake up Romanism and its Papacy as never before.

Yet others have seen a further fulfilment of the "great earthquake" in the very different and Anti-Christian French Revolution of 1789. Indeed, France was one of the ten Horns or Kingdoms of the Neo-Roman Empire. The 1789 French Revolution not only atheized France and polluted many other lands, but it also soon led even to the imprisonment of the Pope in his own Vatican.

There is no doubt that all three of those events very much shook up both Romanism and its Papacy. For such was especially the progressive impact of the 1300 earthquake in Rome; the 1517f Protestant Reformation; and the 1789 French Revolution.

A century before the French Revolution, already Jacques Phillipot wrote in his 1687 Clarifications of St. John's Revelation: "As the King of France did his utmost to enhance the glory of Popery ¾ it will be the King[dom] of France who shall mostly contribute to her ruin.... The city here mentioned is Babylon ¾ that is the Papal Empire, the Church of Rome, the Empire of the Antichrist....

"France is one of the ten horns of the Beast, one of the ten Kingdoms which would be formed according to Daniel out of the debris of the Roman Empire.... According to St. John, she would rise at the same time with the Beast.... The French monarchy, like all the neighbouring states, was established upon the ruins of the Roman Empire and grew at the same time as the Bishop of Rome.... France is a place and a part of the City; that is, of the Papal Empire."

Contemporarily with Phillipot, also Pierre Jurieu asked in his 1687 Accomplishment of the Scripture Prophecies (II ch. 13): "What is this 'tenth' part of this City which shall fall? In my opinion, we cannot doubt that it is France. This Kingdom is the most considerable part or piece of the ten Horns or states which once made up the great Babylonian City [of Rome]....

"Who must begin this last revolt? ... France shall.... It cannot be any country but France ¾ which a long time ago has begun to shake off the yoke of Rome.... The tenth part of the City which must fall ¾ is France."

Still 41 years before the French Revolution, also Bishop Thomas Newton in his celebrated Dissertations on the Prophecies (III:380) insisted during 1748: "Rome, therefore will finally be destroyed by some of the princes.... As the Kings of France have contributed greatly to her advancement ¾ it is not...improbable that some time or other they may also be the principal authors of her destruction. France has already shown some tendency towards a reformation ¾ and therefore may appear more likely to effect such a revolution."

After the French Revolution, many Theologians recognized it as one of the chief fulfilments of Revelation 11:13. Such included also: Joseph Priestley, Timothy Dwight, Samuel Hopkins, G.S. Faber, Thomas Scott, Andrew Fuller, Adam Clarke, Edward Bickersteth, and Albert Barnes.

In his 1806 Dissertation on the Prophecies (II:40f) Faber wrote: "In the year 1789, the 'earthquake' commenced, and in it fell a tenth part...of the great Roman city.... The French Revolution alone can be intended in this prediction.... Titles of nobility in general would be abolished or slain by the earthquake of the French Revolution.... Archbishops and Bishops...the same."

Also the Presbyterian Rev. Dr. Albert Barnes of Philadelphia commented on Revelation 11:13f and 16:2f: "No events have ever taken place in history that would better be compared with the shock of an earthquake, than those which occurred when the long-established governments of Europe and especially the domination of the Papacy so long consolidated and confirmed, were shaken by the Reformation.... We should expect to find such a series of calamities, gradually weakening and finally terminating the papal power in the World.... The French Revolution...in the overthrow of the papal power...has more plausibility than any other explanation proposed....

"France in the time of Charlemagne was the Kingdom to which the Papacy owed its civil organization and its strength.... This Kingdom would be referred to, in the series of judgments that were to accomplish the overthrow of the papal dominion....

"The state [or condition] of Europe has been determined by the condition of France. 'A revolution in France,' said Napoleon, 'is sooner or later followed by a revolution in Europe'....

"The scenes which occurred in the times of the French Revolution...well represent the moral corruption, the pollution, the infidelity, the atheism, the general dissolution of society.... That was a universal breaking out of loathsome internal disease...extending over the countries where the Beast and his image were principally worshipped.

"The symbol would properly denote that tremendous outbreak of social and moral evil, of democratic fury, atheism and vice, which was specially seen to characterize the French Revolution.... The ultimate source was in the long and deep-seated corruption and irreligion of the Nation, the outward Jacobin clubs, and seditious and atheistic publications ¾ the result, the dissolution of all society...and all religion....

"From France as a centre, it spread like a plague throught its affiliated societies to the other countries of 'Papal Christendom'.... All the infidelity and atheism of the French Nation ¾ before so strongly papal ¾ went...far in weakening the power of the Papacy.... The horrid outbreaks in the French Revolution ¾ were the first in the series of providential events that will result in the entire overthrow of that Antichristian Power."

From an atheistic point of view, Marx wrote an appreciative tract On the French Revolution. Also Lenin (in his Can Jacobinism Frighten the Working Class?) declared that the "Jacobinism" of the French Revolution is "one of the highest peaks in the emancipation struggle of an oppressed class.

"The Jacobins gave France the best models of a democratic revolution." Modern Communism or 'Jacobinism' in Europe and in Asia during the twentieth century was to be "the rule of the revolutionary class...for advancing Socialism" alias "all the great, ineradicable, unforgettable things provided by the Jacobins in the eighteenth century." Thus Lenin.

For the bloody French Revolution of 1789 ¾ quite unlike the reformatory American Declaration of Independence of 1776 ¾ was thoroughly atheistic. It tried to abolish God and the Christian Sunday. It is provably the forerunner of both nineteenth-century "Democratic Socialism" and the twentieth-century Communist Revolution of 1917 in Russia and all of its succeeding communist revolutions in Eastern Europe, Africa, Latin America, and Red China.

However, all these things ultimately result in the apparent conversion to Christ of nine-tenths alias all of the rest of the great city of civilized Western Europe. Thus the Geneva Bible, the Dordt Dutch Bible, Matthew Poole, Albert Barnes, and Rev. Prof. Dr. E.W. Hengstenberg.

The Geneva Bible here comments that when they shall understand by God's Word the glory of His [Name] and the punishment of His enemies ¾ they shall fall [away] from the Pope, and glorify God." Also the Dordt Dutch Bible here comments that "a large part of the Romish and Anti-Christian hier-archy falls away from the Antichrist"; and many Romish priests become Protestants.

On Revelation 11:2 and 11:13, Hengstenberg comments: "The Temple is preserved, and only the Court is given up.... The non-desolation of the Temple includes in itself the non-desolation of the City" alias the Commonwealth of Western Civilization. "That this is to be thought of as not destroyed, is evident besides from verse 13 ¾ according to which only the tenth part of the City falls.... The rest give God the glory, and are consequently preserved."

Matthew Henry and Albert Barnes argue that this implies "conversion." B.H. Carroll applies this to the blessed arrival of the Protestant Reformation ¾ and all of its glorious results. May God be pleased to encourage us too, similarly ¾ also in our own day and age!

At this point, it may well be asked whether John himself understood the full significance of the Book of Revelation in general and especially of all of these justmentioned predictions in particular. Very probably he did not.

Before John, Daniel too did not understand all of his own recorded predictions ¾ and John drew heavily on Daniel. Hence, it is doubtful whether John understood all of the meaning of the Book of Revelation of Jesus Christ (even though that Apostle himself received and recorded it).

Christ in His vision to John on Patmos told that Apostle to measure the Temple and the altar and its worshippers with a reed. Here, John may indeed have thought about the first-century A.D. Jewish temple in Jerusalem.

Too, when Jesus told John that the Gentiles would trample down the holy city for forty-two months (alias three-and-a-half years) ¾ John probably connected that with the three-and-a-half years' siege of Jerusalem at the hands of the pagan Romans. For he certainly knew that this siege was about to take place (if as we believe he was writing just beforehand) ¾ or that the latter had taken place (if he was writing even several decades after that event).

Similarly, Christ told John that the Beast would make war against the two faithful witnesses and kill them. Here, John probably understood this to mean the Pagan Roman Beast's destruction by fire of the writings and proclaimers of the Law and the Prophets in the great Sodom-and-Gomorrah city of Jerusalem ¾ where the Lord Jesus had Himself been crucified during that very same generation.

Again, Christ told John that those same witnesses would rise from the dead after three-and-a-half days and ascend into Heaven while the city fell and the remnant repented. Here, John doubtless understood this to mean that after the 70 A.D. destruction of Jerusalem by the pagan Romans ¾ the Law and the Prophets would (like Jesus) rise from the dead and live again in the ongoing testimony of the Christian Church as the God-fearing New Testament Israel and the ever-expanding remnant of the true People of God everywhere.

Yet, at the deeper level, Christ's Book of Revelation obviously goes far beyond John's own understanding of his own vision anent the predictions regarding the temple. Indeed, it is our own conviction that most of these predictions ¾ like those God gave to Daniel in that Prophet's own earlier day ¾ were centrally to be fulfilled only many centuries after John's own time (namely from the times of the rise of Islam and the Papacy right down to the period of the Protestant Reformation and way beyond).

This is what we have outlined above in the preceding paragraphs. And this is what we shall elaborate in greater detail in the following pages of the rest of this present work.

O Christian, may we too (as truly Pro-testant witnesses for the Word of God) not only prophesy to many Nations and peoples and Kings ¾ for our Saviour, and against the false-prophecies of Islam and the Papacy! But may we also assuredly know that true Protestantism, however low its influence may have sunk in our own day, is indestructible and certain yet again to revive!

For in God's good time it will once again, as it were rise, from the dead ¾ in the power of the Holy Spirit. It will not only stand on its own two feet (of the Law and the Prophets). But it will even go forward to gain the ascendancy. Under God, it will yet rule the World ¾ till all God's enemies are either destroyed or converted, and until all men everywhere give glory to the God of Heaven.

So on, then, Christian soldiers! Onward, to victory!

Revelation 11:14-19 December 14

Christ had just predicted: the birth of Romanism; the rise of Islam; the tyranny of the Vatican; the genesis of the Protestant Reformation; and the gradual destruction of the Papacy. Next, John was told that "the second woe is past. But behold, the third woe comes quickly."

This seems to mean that after the first woe or the destruction wrought by Mohammad and his Moslem Arabs, and the second woe or the frightful waxing and the later merciful waning of the power of the Islamic Turks ¾ the third woe would come "quickly." This does not mean, preteristically, that it would come during John's own lifetime. It means, historicalistically, that when it finally came (only many centuries later), it would come hastily.

Now the zenith of papal power occurred soon after the zenith of Turkish power. So this third woe, we submit, was and is the persecution inflicted by the Papacy and her allies during the time of her ascendancy before her decline and gradual though ongoing destruction.

First. Just as the initial woe marked the total result of the sounding of the fifth trumpet and the second woe apparently marked the total result of the sounding of the sixth trumpet, so too does the third woe apparently mark the total result of the sounding of the seventh trumpet. However, just as the opening of the seventh seal of the Lamb's book of history did not immediately bring in the Final Judgment but only anticipated its arrival ¾ so too does the sounding of the seventh trumpet not immediately bring in the Final Judgment, but only anticipates its certain occurrence.

Accordingly, we should not think that the final judgment is already at hand as soon as the seventh trumpet is blown. For that seventh trumpet is blown as a warning about the temporal judgments (and blessings) ¾ which are still to come, thereafter.

An even further time will elapse after that. And all of the above would occur ¾ before the end of the Earth's History, and the Final Judgment.

Mauro says: "At the sounding of the seventh trumpet, the silence is broken.... There is so to speak a mighty shout proceeding from 'great voices in Heaven' which announce the downfall of the rebel Kingdoms of this World."

Bengel says: "As soon as the seventh Angel sounds, the kingdom of this World becomes the Lord's and His Christ's ¾ forever. It is only in Heaven, however, that this takes place so immediately.... In Heaven alone is it celebrated with joy. For dreadful things are still to intervene on Earth."

Yet the "beginning" of the sounding of the seventh trumpet does indeed indicate the termination of the "mystery" alias the unexplained meaning of the seven "thunders." Now, their meaning is disclosed.

Thus begins the destruction of the scourge of the Islamic Turks. Thus too commences also the destruction of the "mystery" of "Babylon" alias the false and papal Romanistic politico-religious domination of this World. Indeed, such destruction is to be accomplished precisely through the means of the subsequently-described seven bowls or vials of the wrath of God.

Furthermore, the sounding of the seventh trumpet also announces the subsequent drawing nigh of the World's Golden Jubilee ¾ after the destruction of 'Babylon.' Thus Matthew Poole, Matthew Henry, Thomas Scott, William Cunninghame, and B.H. Carroll.

For it is precisely after the powerful Protestant preaching of Christ's Gospel throughout the World, "that there would no longer be a time" of delay. But in the days of the voice of the seventh Angel [yet to come], when he shall begin to sound [his trumpet], the mystery of God would be finished."

Indeed, as the Geneva Bible rightly comments: "Albeit Satan by the Pope, Turk, and other instruments troubles the World never so much ¾ yet Christ shall reign!" He reigns now. And He will keep on expanding that reign ¾ especially then, after the blowing of the seventh trumpet.

For then, great voices in Heaven keep on saying something very important. They say: 'The kingdom of the World has become that of our Lord and of His Christ; and He shall keep on reigning for ever and ever!"

Third. It was only after the blowing of the seventh trumpet, that John heard the above message of those great voices in Heaven.

As John himself wrote: "The seventh Angel sounded" or finished sounding the trumpet (esalpisen). Then "there were (kai egenonto) great voices in Heaven, saying: 'The kingdom of the World has become that of our Lord and of His Christ; and He shall keep on reigning (basileusei) for ever and ever!'"

This indicates that these "great voices in Heaven" were not commenting on the immediate results right at the beginning of the blowing of the seventh trumpet. To the contrary. They were rather commenting on the ultimate result at the ending of the blowing of that trumpet.

Fourth. It is very important to note that all these heavenly voices were not referring to the situation in Heaven. To the contrary. They were referring to the situation right here on Earth ¾ to an alteration of the kingdom or the sovereignty (basileia) of "the World" (or tou Kosmou). For John here heard "voices...saying: 'The kingdom of the World has become that of our Lord and of His Christ; and He shall keep on reigning for ever and ever!'"

Fifth. This in no way implies that Christ has not been ruling here on Earth prior to that as-yet-still-future time being referred to here. To the contrary. He has been ruling as God from all eternity. And He has also been ruling as man ¾ ever since His ascension and heavenly session.

Yet our text certainly implies that Christ's present reign is still expanding. For that Kingdom is not yet consummated. It is only after the still-future destruction of the Papacy that this kingdom of the World will have become the universally-acknowledged Kingdom of our God and His Christ.

Then, it will be recognized as such: throughout the entire World. Thus: Ambrose, Augustine, Walafrid Strabo, Joachim of Floris, Arnold of Villanova, Pierre Jean d'Olivi, Matthew Poole, E.W. Hengstenberg, Albert Barnes, B.H. Carroll, and many others.

Thus Hengstenberg comments (on Revelation 11:15): "'The kingdom has become!' The result is first actually attained in verse 19.... That royal word of the suffering Jesus ¾ 'My Kingdom is not of this World' ¾ has been greatly abused. His Kingdom is not worldly; but the kingdom of the World is [to become] holy and Christian! This province [of this World] ¾ which has long enough been in [Satan] the enemy's hands ¾ has at last [by the time predicted in Revelation 11:15-18] finally been recovered. It is possessed by the Lord and [by all of] His anointed!"

This means that Christ is to possess or take possession of the kingdom of this World. In Him, so too are all of His anointed or baptized Christians.

Then, our already-reigning King Jesus Christ will be acknowledged everywhere throughout the World. Then He will be acknowledged as the King of the World ¾ acknowledged to be the ruling Lord He already and actually is. And thereafter ¾ He shall keep on reigning, for ever and ever.

Sixth. Christ's earthly Kingdom shall not be consummated immediately after the destruction of the Papacy. Once the Vatican has been demolished by the Protestant preaching of God's Word, Protestantism will rule the World.

We have already seen that the Post-Papal Protestant witnesses will not only revive or live again. Indeed, we have also seen how, after the destruction of one-tenth of the "great city" of the Romish Empire ¾ the increasing testimony of Protestant witnesses will ultimately influence even the remainder of mankind or "the rest" or all "the remnant" of "the people and kindreds and tongues and Nations" to give glory to the God of Heaven.

Thus we are told that ¾ in practice too ¾ the time will come when "the kingdom of the World has become that of our Lord and of His Christ." But we are also further assured that even after that, "He shall keep on reigning for ever and ever." He will then keep on ruling thus ¾ right here ¾ in "this World." And, after the Final Judgment, He will continue so to rule also over the renewed Earth. For ever.

Seventh. John was accordingly next transported to the time of the Final Judgment itself. Then, "the twenty-four Elders who sat in front of God upon their seats [or thrones] ¾ fell upon their faces and worshipped God."

At that time, they say: "We give thanks to You, O Lord God Almighty, Who is and Who was! For You have taken Your great power unto Yourself. And You have kept on reigning.... The Nations were angry; but Your wrath has come ¾ and the time that the dead should be judged."

The time has come too "that You should give reward to Your Servants the Prophets and to the saints and to them who fear Your Name, small and great." The time has come, that You "should destroy those who destroy the Earth."

As the Geneva Bible here comments: "This declares the office of the godly." For that office or assignment "is to give God thanks for the deliverance of His" ¾ that is, for the salvation of the children of the Lord. And that assignment is also given, in order "to praise His justice for the punishing of His enemies."

Lastly. Just at this very point in the Final Judgment ¾ there is the suggestion that the World already has been christianized. For at that Last Assize, history shall have run its course. Then, the Elders in Heaven declare: "The Nations were angry" ¾ but are angry no more, at that time of the end. Too, the emphasis will then be more on the rewarding of God's Servants ¾ than on His punishing of the destroyers.

For that will be "the time of the dead ¾ that they should be judged." That will be the time ¾ the Elders tell their God ¾ "that You should give reward to Your Servants the Prophets and to the saints and to them who fear Your Name, small and great."

The time will then also have come, the Elders go on to tell their God, that You "should destroy those who destroy the Earth." But at least on a national and an international scale, the destruction of the then-resurrected wicked will be on account of their past transgressions committed long ago before their deaths ¾ rather than with regard to widescale transgressions committed immediately prior to the Final Judgment. For such latter, apparently, shall have ceased ¾ long before then.

For then the Elders say: "The Nations were angry" ¾ not: 'the Nations are angry.' And then, the Elders say to God: "Your wrath came." They do not then say: 'Your wrath comes' or 'Your wrath shall come.'

By then, the seventh trumpet will long ago have finished sounding. Also by then, the kingdom of this World will long ago have become that of our Lord and of His Christ. Indeed, thereafter He shall keep on reigning ¾ for ever and ever. Thus too Bede, Anselm, and Thomas Aquinas.

As Matthew Poole points out, "it shall come to pass in that day, that the great trumpet shall be blown.... They shall come ¾ which were ready to perish in the land of Assyria. And the outcasts in the land of Egypt...shall worship the Lord on the Holy Mount at Jerusalem" ¾ that is, on the Mount Zion of the Christian Church.

O Christian, let us then realize that Christ not only rules in this World today, in the hearts of His children. But let us also realize that the kingdom of this World ¾ the World-as-such (with all its scientific and artistic contents) ¾ is yet destined to become that of our Lord and of His Christ in practice too. Even thereafter, He shall keep on reigning here; on this Earth; in the World ¾ for ever and ever!

Let us then, as Christ's loyal witnesses, redouble our efforts toward the realization of this noble goal! Let us ever seek to gain the ascendancy, in our testimony toward the World ¾ until it becomes either converted or confounded! Either way, it will then give glory to the God of Heaven ¾ Whose Kingdom is over all, and Whose Kingdom keeps on lasting for ever.

So on, then, Christian soldiers! Onward, to victory!

Revelation 12:1-2 December 15

John had seen the seven Angels and heard them sounding the seven trumpets one after the other. Next, the Apostle John was shown a completely different vision.

It was a vision about events occurring prior to the climax and downfall of the Papacy. For John was shown "the Temple of God...opened in Heaven. And there was seen in His Temple, the ark of His Testament. And there were lightnings, and voices and thunderings, and an earthquake, and great hail."

This leads to yet another 'playback' of the history of redemption ¾ this time, probably from the first Gospel Promise in Genesis 3:15 right down to the rise and development of the Papacy. But this in turn then leads on to a further presentation of a general preview of the Papacy's yet-future fall ¾ and to the victory of the True Church alias the saints over all Non-Christian opposition, right here in this present World.

The first part of this playback does not relate to the virgin Mary. For even according to modern Romanism, before her pregnancy Mary had not yet been "clothed with the sun." Nor did she then yet have "the moon under her feet." Nor did she then yet have "on her head...a crown of twelve Stars" ¾ at the time John says the woman first conceived and then gave birth to her "male son" (Revelation 12:1-5).

The "woman" here symbolizes the earthly Church. This means the whole of that Church-as-such ¾ and specifically the Older Testament's Church right down to the time when Christ was conceived and soon thereafter born.

Thus most even of the Pre-Reformation-al Theologians ¾ such as Tertullian, Hippolytus, Victorinus, Methodius, Ephraim, Tichonius, Beatus, Walafrid Strabo, the Venerable Bede, Berengaud, Waldo and the Waldensians, Richard of St. Victor, Bruno Segni, Rupert Deutz, Joachim of Floris, Pierre Jean d'Olivi, Purvey, Walter Brute ¾ and even Rome's 1590 Franscisco Ribera. So too almost all Protestants, from Martin Luther right down to Hengstenberg etc.

Explained the latter: "The woman...is not the community of Israel in contradistinction to the Christian Church.... Nor on the other hand does it denote the Christian Church in contradistinction to the community of Israel. For the Christ-ian Church did not have Christ born into it....

"On the head of the woman, is a 'crown of twelve Stars.' These cannot denote the twelve Apostles...for the woman has the crown of twelve Stars...before the birth of her Son.... They are rather the twelve Israelitish Patriarchs, as ideal representatives of the Tribes" of Older Testament's Israel alias the Church of the Older Testament ¾ which later of its very own and self-same substance (homo-ousios) gave birth to the Newer Testament's Church.

Wrote John (during the first century A.D.): "A great wonder appeared in Heaven ¾ a woman clothed with the sun, and the moon under her feet. And on her head was a crown of twelve Stars."

First. It should be noted that the Church had not yet been exalted unto Heaven. Except for the Church Triumphant of the saints already in glory, this is still the case.

Yet both the Church latent and the Church patent was, and indeed is, of heavenly origin. Thus John wrote that "a great wonder appeared in Heaven ¾ a woman."

The True Church of Christ is frequently compared throughout Scripture to a beautiful woman. She was chosen by the Triune God before the foundation of the World to become His bride ¾ and the names of all her Members were even then written down in Heaven.

Consequently, once Christians have been justified and brought into the Visible Church ¾ they must never forget that they derive their 'citizenship' of the Kingdom of God, from Heaven. They do not derive it from this present sinful World ¾ even though it is here on Earth that they are to exercise their heavenly citizenship, now, in everything they do.

May we too never forget the "great wonder" of our sublime heavenly origin ¾ and our Heaven-on-Earth destiny! May we remember this ¾ especially while we serve the Lord here and now on Earth (as the Angels do in Heaven)!

Second. Though potentially existing in the 'mind' of God from all eternity, the Church as the Body of Christ came into actual existence only immediately after the fall of man. When God created man, He had communion with him. And He enjoined him, as the crown of His creation, to serve Him by being fruitful and multiplying and filling the Earth and subduing it to His glory ¾ in accordance with the Law of God inscribed upon the human heart.

When the Devil shortly thereafter misled man into sin ¾ God Himself, as the Word, immediately came to man's assistance. For He promised to incarnate Himself later ¾ as the virgin-born Second Adam or the Seed of the woman Who would crush the Devil's skull at the 'place of the skull' ¾ Golgotha.

As soon as Adam and and Eve believed this promise ¾ they became the first Members of Christ's Church here on Earth. And as soon as they and their believing children congregated together to call upon the Name of the Lord ¾ the first Visible Congregation of Christ's Church was constituted, here on Earth.

May we clearly see the relevance of the above also to us! May we too always understand that we also are but the continuation of that original Body of all Christian believers!

Third. The Church of Christ is indeed a "great wonder," particularly on account of her glorious appearance. For this description is true of the Church of all ages.

During the times of the Older Testament, the Church was already "a woman clothed with the sun" with "the moon under her feet ¾ and on her head a crown of twelve Stars." In the times of the Newer Testament, the Church is even more glorious. In yet-future ages, the Church becomes more glorious still. For she is predestined to grow ¾ from glory, and to yet greater glory.

It should be noted, however, that this glory is by no means limited to the Church as an institute. For the Church of Christ is His Church not only when she meets for worship, institutionally.

In addition, she is also the Church ¾ though the Church as an organism ¾ even when her Members engage in different endeavours than public worship. Indeed, such other different endeavours include Christian involvement in the subjugation of the whole World and all of its contents to the glory of God ¾ in exploration, in art, in science, in education, and in politics etc. (whenever done consciously to the glory of God-in-Christ).

It is, then, particularly as an organism that Christ's Church is "a woman clothed with the sun" ¾ having Heaven's light and glory as her own. For she has "the moon under her feet" ¾ and thus subjugates all the reflected cultural glory of the Earth.

Again, she also wears "on her head...a crown of twelve Stars" as the symbols of political authority. All this indicates how the Church as an organism alias the Body of Christ should ideally (though only indirectly) influence even the statesmen of the World ¾ through her powerful living-out and preaching of both the Law and the Gospel, both in public and in private.

As the Geneva Bible comments: "The Church...is compassed about with Jesus Christ the Son [and the Sun] of righteousness.... The Church treads under foot whatsoever is mutable and inconstant with all corrupt affections!"

Fourth. It is interesting to note how even the Older Testament's Church actually fulfilled this ideal role. For God created the sun and the moon and the stars for the use of elect mankind. Moreover, God told our first parents to have dominion over the Cosmos ¾ by subduing the Earth (and, in time, even the moon).

Now all of this was to be enjoyed by the children of God ¾ the true seed of the woman. They, like political "Stars" ¾ far more influential than movie stars! ¾ were to rule the Universe to the glory of the Lord.

It is, however, especially from the times of the Newer Testament onward that Christ's Church was powerfully to expand and to subdue the Earth. For after the Lord Jesus told His disciples to go into all the World and to preach the Gospel to every creature and to turn all Nations into His disciples ¾ the Church began to do just that.

Today, as Christians correctly understand this mandate from God, they are ¾ in their various different capacities as Members of the non-institutional Church-as-an-organism ¾ right now fulfilling this. For they are right now "being clothed" with the sun ¾ as they help harness solar energy to the glory of God. They are right now subduing the moon under their feet ¾ as they promote lunar explorations, for Christ's sake.

Indeed, they are right now ¾ by the grace of the Spirit ¾ wearing "a crown of twelve Stars." For ¾ on the basis of the God-given teachings of the Older Testament's twelve Tribes of Israel, supporting the further structure of the God-given teachings of the Newer Testament's twelve Apostles of Christ's Church ¾ Christians are right now infiltrating into, and will ultimately take over, even the political governments of this World.

They do this not for their own sake, but for Christ's sake. And they do this not as the institutional Church, but as the organic Body of Christ. Yet when they have finished doing this, "the light of the moon shall be like the light of the sun. And the light of the sun shall be sevenfold, like the light of seven days."

Sixth. All of this, however, will ultimately come to pass only because the Older Testament's Church produced Christ-according-to-the-flesh. He obtained this great dominion, on behalf of and for His People.

The pre-incarnational Church is the "ark of the covenant" ¾ which bore God's Testament: Jesus Christ. For Jehovah's wife, the beautiful woman of the Older Testament ¾ "was pregnant. She cried out; travailed in birth; and was in pain to be delivered."

According to many Theologians, this probably refers to the birth of Jesus Christ as the Second Adam. Thus Tertullian, Hippolytus, Victorinus, Walafrid Strabo, Berengaud, Richard of St. Victor, Bernard of Clairvaux, Albert the Great, Joachim of Floris, and Pierre Jean d'Olivi.

According to many other Theologians, the above verse probably refers to the ongoing 'birth' of new Christians especially in the Early Church and in the Mediaeval Church. Thus Methodius, Tichonius, Bruno Segni, the Calvinistic Geneva Bible, the Calvinistic Dordt Dutch Bible, Matthew Poole, Matthew Henry, Bishop Thomas Newton, John Brown of Haddington, Priestley, Thomas Scott, Adam Clarke, Albert Barnes, and even the Roman Catholic Douay Bible.

The above two views about the above verse are by no means exclusive of each other. Frankly, each ¾ in turn ¾ seems to be appropriate and correct.

The above verse represents also the beginning of the Newer Testament's fulfilment of the Older Testament's Protevangelium or 'First Gospel Promise.' There, God declared that the Seed of the woman would redeem elect mankind and crush the Devil.

That was the beginning of the fulfilment of the predictions of Isaiah ¾ where God promised that the virgin would conceive and bear Immanuel, Whose Kingdom would be established with judgment and Whose government would increase without end. And it is the beginning of the fulfilment also of the predictions of Micah ¾ where God promised that "the first dominion" and "the Kingdom shall come to the daughter of Jerusalem" when her birth-pangs would overtake her like "a woman in travail," when "out of Bethlehem He shall come forth Who is to be Ruler in Israel."

Christ's birth from the Older Testament's Church is just the beginning of His Kingdom. The Older Testament's Church becomes the Early-Christian Church and then increases into the Mediaeval Christian Church ¾ even after the rise and reign of the Papacy. As the True Church, she continues to be fruitful and to give birth also to the remainder alias "the rest of her seed" (including the Reformed Church) ¾ even in spite of dragon-like papal persecution.

Observes Jonathan Edwards: "For the first three hundred years after Christ, the Church was for the most part in a state of great affliction ¾ the object of reproach and persecution first by the [Judaistic] Jews and then by the Heathen [Romans]. After this, from the beginning of Constantine's time [A.D. 312f], the Church had rest and prosperity for a little while....

"But presently...the Church again suffered persecution.... [The Papal Romish] Antichrist arose and the Church was driven away into the Wilderness and was kept down in obscurity and contempt and suffering for a long time under Antichrist ¾ before the Reformation by Luther and others....

"This suffering state of the Church ¾ is, in Scripture, represented as a state of the Church's travail.... Revelation 12:1-2.... Before the time of Constantine, the troubles of the Christian Church were from [Pagan or] Heathen Rome. Since that time, its troubles have been mainly from [Papal] Antichristian Rome."

Nevertheless, O Christian, let us catch the glorious vision of what God says the Church should be ¾ and is! For the Bible declares that the Church is "a woman clothed with the sun, and the moon under her feet, and on her head a crown of twelve Stars."

Let us as Members of this glorious Church-as-an-institute, praise God for the birth of Jesus Christ the Lord ¾ and make known His saving power and restorative work even unto the very ends of the Cosmos! Too, let us also, as Members of the Church-as-an-organism ¾ then exploit the sun; subdue the moon; and (at least economically and politically) even reach for the stars!

So on, then, Christian soldiers! Onward, to victory!

Revelation 12:3-4 December 16

John had just been given the glorious vision of the Church of God (from Eden onwards), clothed with the sun and dominating the moon and crowned with Stars. In the fullness of time, this Church was to give birth to the Lord Jesus Christ. But next, the Apostle was given another vision of an entirely different character.

Wrote John: "There appeared another wonder in Heaven. And look, a great red Dragon having seven heads and ten horns and seven crowns upon his heads! And his tail drew down the third part of the Stars of Heaven, and cast them to the Earth. Then the Dragon stood in front of the woman who was ready to give birth ¾ in order to devour her child as soon as he was born."

First. It should be noted that although not a "great wonder" as was the previous vision of the sun-clothed woman ¾ even this "another" and sinister vision of the Dragon, was nevertheless a "wonder." The nature of this "wonder" is, of course, that God would ever allow this Dragon ¾ whom He Himself created to His Own glory at the beginning as an originally-sinless creature ¾ later to drag fully one-third of the created "Stars" down onto the Earth.

It is also a great wonder that God would allow the Dragon to threaten especially His Own beloved Son at the time of His incarnation ¾ and His Own beloved Church during her earthly history. As the Christian poet William Cowper reminds us: "God moves in a mysterious way, His wonders to perform!"

Second. It should be understood, however, that this originally-sinless creature had undergone a detrimental change of character. That change occurred between the primordial time when God created him in original rectitude, and the later time when that creature draconianly pulled down the stars (and later still threatened the infant Jesus).

That creature, the Dragon ¾ we are told ¾ is the Devil, alias Satan. We are also told that it was through the dragonlike instrumentality of pagan Rome ¾ that Satan sought to destroy the man Christ Jesus. Yet though He made the one who is now the Devil, God did not make him as the Devil.

Neither did God create Rome ¾ as pagan Rome. To the contrary. Our God created the Romans as blessed sons of Japheth the son of Noah, the son of Adam, the son of God. And God created the one who is now the Devil, as a beautiful and originally "very good" angelic creature ¾ Lucifer (the great 'Upholder of the Light').

Third. We should note that Lucifer did not stay good. He was originally created to uphold the Light, namely God the Son. For the Son: is the Arch-angel; the Archee alias the Beginner of creation; the divine Mon-arch Who ruled all the created Angels; the One Who always was and still is the One and Only divine Light of the World; the One called 'Michael.' That latter Name means: 'Who is like the Triune God?' Yes, Who indeed(?) ¾ save that One Who Alone in His Own Self is the Central Person of the Triune God!

Yet, instead of upholding Michael the Light, Lucifer the "Light-bearer" apparently desired himself to become just like that Light. But in so doing, he only became "that old Serpent called the Devil and Satan." And as such, he misled some of the other "Stars" or created Angels ¾ when he with "his tail drew the third part of the Stars of Heaven" after him "and cast them to the Earth."

Fourth. The result of this Satanic rebellion was that "there was war in Heaven." God the Son alias "Michael and His Angels, fought against the Dragon. And the Dragon and his Angels fought ¾ but he did not prevail. Neither was their place any longer found in Heaven. So the great Dragon was cast out ¾ that old Serpent called the Devil and Satan who deceives the whole World. He was cast out onto the Earth; and his Angels were cast out with him" ¾ by now themselves having become his Demons.

From then on, also through his Demons, Satan deceived the whole World. Indeed, he and they then kept on doing so ¾ until the Lord Jesus Christ came as the mighty God-man to begin the reversal of that process.

It was that old Serpent the Devil who deceived our first mother in the garden of Eden and thus brought untold miseries onto the entire human race. Thereafter, he restlessly went forth to and fro throughout the Earth ¾ and proceeded to mislead nearly all individuals.

Satan misled even all the Nations ¾ except the True Israel within the Older Testament's Nation of Visible Israel, from whose bosom the Messiah was to be born. And Satan misled the Nation of pagan Rome in particular. For he dragged down and debased the "Stars" or the Political Leaders there too ¾ in his grim attempt to destroy the Messiah at His human birth, and later again at His death.

Fifth. This awesome spectre is described as "a great red Dragon having seven heads and ten horns and seven crowns upon his heads." Clearly, this refers to the Devil specifically in the guise of the Roman Empire.

That is an identification plainly made in many portions of Holy Scripture. It is therefore the conviction also of Tertullian, Victorinus, Pareus, the Dordt Dutch Bible, Mede, Tillinghast, Goodwin, Sherwin, Matthew Poole, Cramer, Matthew Henry, Sir Isaac Newton, Bishop Thomas Newton, John Brown of Haddington, Priestley, Thomas Scott, Adam Clarke, Bishop Elliott, David Brown, Albert Barnes, and many Theologians.

Furthermore, the spectre seen by John was that of "a great red Dragon" with "ten horns." This corresponds to the Roman or fourth "great" Beast in Daniel's vision. For that Beast there was "dreadful and terrible and exceedingly strong" ¾ with "great iron teeth" and "ten horns."

Moreover, John's Dragon had "seven crowns" upon its seven heads. These seven crowns and heads were probably successive and not contemporaneous. But either way, they clearly identify the beast as the temporal political power corresponding to the "seven mountains" surrounding the ancient city of Rome.

In addition, those "seven crowns" or seven Kings or Kingdoms ¾ may also represent the seven successive and heathen ancient World Empires (of which Rome was the then-current one). And again, the "seven Kings" remind one both of the seven successive forms of government of the Roman Empire itself ¾ as well as of Rome's seven chief "Kings" or Emperors during John's own century in particular, at the time that Apostle received this very vision.

It should be noted, however, that this prediction would not be fulfilled completely ¾ until long after John's own day. For it was only after the time of Constantine that Rome would clearly be seen to have ten uncrowned horns or provinces. And those ten provinces would thereafter soon be broken up into ten distinct Kingdoms, subsequently held together in an artificial way only by the Romish Papacy.

Barnes says: "John meant to describe what occurred in the World at the time when the True Church seemed to be about to extend itself over the Earth ¾ and when that prosperity was checked by the rise of the Papal Power.... The woman is driven for 1260 years into the Wilderness and nourished there.... I regard this therefore as referring to the time of the rise of the Papacy."

Sixth. The third part of the stars which the Roman Dragon drew down with his tail do indeed remotely refer to Satan's original dragging down of some of the Angels. Yet it probably also (and more immediately) refers to the corruption of the Political Leaders (or "Stars") of that significant part of the Satan-bound World then governed as the worldly Roman Empire.

There had indeed been Roman puppet-princes like King Herod of Palestine (who wickedly attempted to destroy the Lord Jesus at His birth) ¾ as well as Roman puppet-governors like Pontius Pilate (who Satanically tried to destroy the Messiah at the time of His death). So too in later centuries, there would also be Roman Puppet-Emperors like Julian the Apostate and the cruel Phocas (who as Satan's agents would wage war against the followers of Christ).

It is precisely these later imperial Roman persecutions of Christianity which are emphasized by many Theologians. Prominent examples of such, include: Matthew Henry, Bishop Thomas Newton, John Brown of Haddington, Priestley, Thomas Scott, Adam Clarke, and Albert Barnes.

But even at the very zenith of their power, both Satan the Dragon and his dragonlike Roman Empire could muster minority support only ¾ for their evil machinations. Previously, when Lucifer became Satan, only "the third part of the Stars of Heaven" followed him in his rebellion. At the birth of Jesus Christ, again only a minority of the World's Rulers uselessly tried to prevent it.

During the subsequent Roman centuries, only the third part of the Mediterranean World's resources and peoples were destroyed or impaired. And thereafter, even the cumulative spread of violence at the hands of Antichristian Emperors and Romish Popes all together ¾ destroyed hardly a third of the heartland of the West.

O Christian, thanks be to God Who always causes His Kingdom to triumph! For Satan's party is a minority. Already, he is a defeated foe.

He was defeated in his initial rebellion; defeated at Christ's birth when the infant Jesus escaped Herod's bloodbath; defeated by our Christ at Calvary, when His foot crushed the Serpent's skull; and defeated when Jesus rose from the realm of the dead, which could not hold Him there. Furthermore, Satan is constantly and progressively defeated by Christians too. For God continually and increasingly bruises Satan under their feet also.

So on, then, Christian soldiers! Onward, to victory!

John had described that great red Dragon Satan, and his dragon-like Roman vassal (the Pagan Roman Empire). Next, he went on to explain how "the Dragon stood in front of the woman who was ready to give birth ¾ in order to devour her child as soon as he was born."

Although probably also referring to the Satan-inspired persecution of the true children of God in the Early and in the Mediaeval Church ¾ even the latter obviously roots in the persecution of Jesus Himself from the time He was a child. Accordingly, the human life of Christ Himself will be the main focus of this particular exposition here in our present study ¾ reserving Satan's subsequent persecution(s) of Christ's Church till our next study.

The Satanic Dragon inspired his Pagan Roman lackey and the latter's wicked Puppet-King Herod of Judea to attempt to destroy the Saviour right at His very birth. For when he heard that Jesus had been "born King" ¾ Herod "was troubled" and "sent forth and slew all the children that were in Bethlehem." For that was the city out of which God said "He shall come forth to Me Who is to be Ruler in Israel ¾ Whose goings-forth have been...from everlasting."

First. Satan's futile attempt to destroy the infant Jesus soon after He was born ¾ predictably ended in utter failure. For the woman, the Older Testament's Church, through the agency of the blessed virgin Mary as a Member of that Church, "brought forth a male child" alias a baby boy in the person of the infant Jesus.

Not only was the then-tiny Jesus not destroyed by wicked Herod as Rome's Puppet-King. Too, many also in Israel even then confessed His Lordship. And three important leaders also from the East even then acknowledged Him as their King, too.

At that very time, when the Roman vassal Herod was about to strike, the infant Messiah was "caught up unto God." For an "Angel of the Lord appeared to Joseph [the husband of Mary the mother of our Lord] in a dream, saying: 'Arise, and take the young child and His mother, and flee into Egypt!'"

Too, "when Herod was dead ¾ look! An Angel of the Lord appeared in a dream to Joseph in Egypt, saying: 'Arise, and take the young child and His mother, and go into the land of Israel! For they who sought the young child's life, are dead.'"

Also shortly thereafter, when he heard that Herod's son Archelaus was reigning in Judea ¾ Joseph and his wife and the infant Jesus again escaped and went to live in Galilee. That was the region where the Saviour had been predestinated to shine forth as a great Light and as a reigning King and with an ever-increasing government. Indeed, the one brought forth by the woman in John's vision was ¾ of course ¾ None Other than He "Who was to rule all Nations with a rod of iron."

The Geneva Bible makes a valuable comment on this. It observes that "Jesus Christ, the first-born among many brethren" ¾ whom He benefitted ¾ "was born of the virgin Mary, as a special Member of the Church."

Second. At the end of our Lord's earthly life, however, the Satanic Dragon ¾ through his dragonlike Pagan Roman lackey ¾ again threatened "to devour" Jesus. For then "the Heathen raged, and...the Kings of the Earth stood up and the rulers were gathered together ¾ against the Lord and against His Christ."

Too, also the Early Church's Christians prayed to the Lord while recounting that very event. They then reminded God: "Truly, against Your holy child Jesus Whom You anointed, both Herod and Pontius Pilate together with the Gentiles and the People of Israel were gathered together ¾ in order to do whatsoever Your hand and Your counsel predetermined to be done."

However, again Christ was rescued ¾ being "caught up to God." For He was raised up from the dead on the third day after His crucifixion by the Romans. Thereafter, yet again He was "caught up" at the time of His ascension into Heaven just forty days later. Once more ¾ Satan and his Roman tool had failed to stem Christ's advancement of the Kingdom of God.

Third. Christ was, however, not only "caught up" ¾ at the time of His ascension. Immediately thereafter, He also sat down at the right hand of His heavenly Father ¾ where as the Son of man He started to reign, and whence He now reigns for evermore, and keeps on ruling throughout His Cosmos.

For the "male child" Jesus was "caught up to God and to His throne." And the man Jesus, as the Christ, now sways His royal sceptre as King of the entire Universe. For He commands in His Great Commission that all must submit to Him. And, through the efforts of His earthly Church, He steadily expands His sovereignty as the Son of man ¾ throughout the World.

Fourth. This must necessarily be the case. For Christ was foreordained before the foundation of the World to become the Second Adam or the Son of man and "to rule all Nations with a rod of iron" ¾ namely "to shepherd" and "to feed them." Indeed, right now, he is even extending the boundaries and greatly strengthening the principles of His Church here on Earth ¾ until all those same principles first encircle and finally permeate everything.

For as God the Father said of His Son Jesus Christ our Lord: "Yet have I set My King upon My holy hill of Zion!" And as the risen Saviour proclaimed to the World: "I will declare the decree. The Lord has said...'You are My Son. This day I have begotten You.'"

Indeed, as the Father then replied to the risen and ascended and then-enthroned Messiah: "Ask of Me, and I shall give You the Heathen as Your inheritance, and the uttermost parts of the Earth for Your possession! You shall [rule or] break them with a rod of iron. You shall dash them into pieces, like a potter's vessel" or brittle earthenware.

As also the Apostle John affirmed, after the death of the Messiah, the Latter "was caught up to God and to His throne." For, henceforth ¾ as the great Provider ¾ He "was to rule [or shepherd and feed] all Nations."

O Christian! Our Saviour has overcome the Devil, and also the latter's tool Pagan Rome. And now, from His celestial throne on high precisely as the Son of man, our Saviour henceforth rules the Universe ¾ yes, rules the whole Universe ¾ including even our own World as part of that Universe.

He firmly guides the further unfolding of even our own Earth's History. Indeed, He superintends also the expansion especially of His heavenly-minded Church ¾ here and now ¾ throughout the World.

He expects also us to share in that rule, here and now. Satan indeed threatens to devour us ¾ even as he threatened to devour our Saviour. But in the Name of Christ the Conqueror ¾ we are to 'devour' Satan. For we too are to subdue the Devil, to the glory of God. Each of us is to do so in his or her own daily life; in the area of the Church in general; and particularly in the public sphere.

Albert Barnes comments: "The Dragon stood...to prevent the increase and spread of the Church in the World." Yet "the Church...was destined to reign in all the Earth.... All the Earth was to become subject to its laws.... The Church would yet have the ascendancy or the dominion over the Earth....

"I understand the 'man-child' here therefore to refer to the Church in its increase under the Messiah, and the idea to be that that Church was...to be enlarged.... Though its increase was opposed, yet it was destined ultimately to assert a mild sway over all the World."

Christ reigns now from His throne above. Indeed, through the born-again child of God who reigns with Him here and now ¾ Christ is even now expanding His rule right here on Earth ¾ and among all Nations.

So on, then, Christian soldiers!

On, under the ever-expanding rule of Christ over this Earth of His!

Onward, to victory!

Revelation 12:6-11 December 18

The Apostle had just described the frustration of the Satanic Dragon and his dragonlike tool Pagan Rome. For futile had been their attempts to devour the true child of God as rooted in the birth, resurrection, ascension, and heavenly enthronement of Jesus Christ the Second Adam.

John next went on to explain how Satan and Rome were again even further frustrated thereafter. For now they sought, but failed, to destroy also the People of God which had given birth to Christ ¾ and which (as the Newer Testament's Church) was still left behind on Earth to christianize it after the Lord Jesus Christ's Own ascension into Heaven.

Jesus had said those who hated Him, would hate also His followers. Thus, no longer able to reach the now-ascended and enthroned Christ Himself in Heaven ¾ Satan and his lackey Pagan Rome, in their hatred of Christ, now turned against the other children of God (alias the 'Christ'-ians). Indeed, Satan and Rome drove them into the cultural Wilderness ¾ for "a thousand two hundred and sixty days."

First. It should be noticed that the result of this Satanic and Pagan Roman hatred of Christians ¾ was war.

This was a grim warfare between the Satanically-inspired Rome on the one hand ¾ and God's Spiritually-inspired Christian Church on the other. The purpose of this warfare, was the acquisition of control over the Roman Empire ¾ within the huge area of which nearly all of the Early Christians then resided.

So, while Christ's bride fled into the spiritual Wilderness to be kept alive there for "a thousand two hundred and sixty days" ¾ there "was war in Heaven. Michael and His Angels fought against the Dragon. And the Dragon fought, and his Angels."

But Michael and His followers won. For Michael ¾ Mi ka-'El ¾ is the divine Christ. Indeed, Who is like God or Mi ka-'El? Who indeed? Except the One Who Himself is God or 'El! 'Michael' is the uncreated Divine Word or Logos. Thus Calvin, the Calvinistic Geneva Bible, the Calvinistic Dordt Dutch Bible, Matthew Poole, Matthew Henry, Hengstenberg, Lenski, and Carroll.

It is true that this specific warfare is rooted in the initial rebellion of Lucifer and his Angels (who thus became Satan and his Demons) ¾ fighting against Michael-Christ and His Angels even before the fall of man. And it is also true that this warfare thereafter continued, down throughout Old Testament times, in the struggles between the Gentile Nations and Israel.

Moreover, this same war was decisively waged by that Greater Israel (our Lord Jesus Christ). He did so, for us, at His death and resurrection and heavenly session.

Yet in its immediate context, this verse seems specifically to be referring (at least centrally) to an event some time after Christ's heavenly session. And that later event seems to be the spiritual struggle between Christians and Non-Christians for the control of the Roman Empire ¾ here on Earth ¾ during the early centuries of the Christian era after the ascension and heavenly session of the Lord Jesus Christ Himself.

During this later time, the harried Christians gradually kept on rising to ever greater heights. They were repeatedly inspired by the memory of the triumphant example of Michael-Christ ¾ during His Own previous earthly struggles against Satan and his followers. They were also encouraged especially by Christ's final earthly struggles, all Alone, against all those agents ¾ and without any help even from His Own Angels.

So the Early Church's Christians ¾ together with their Preachers as some of Christ's "Angels" or Heralds ¾ now themselves continued that holy "war" in "Heaven" ¾ that is, they too now fought especially on a 'heavenly' plane alias at the spiritual level. And, under Christ the Captain of their salvation, they fought the good fight of faith against the Satanic Dragon and his dragonlike Pagan Roman lackey which had previously sought to destroy even the Lord Jesus Christ Himself.

As the Calvinistic Geneva Bible here correctly comments, 'Michael and His Angels' here means "Jesus Christ and His Members." The latter, it adds, includes "apostles, martyrs, and the rest of the faithful."

Similarly, also the Calvinistic Dordt Dutch Bible here comments that by "this 'Michael' ¾ that is, 'who is like God?' ¾ most expositors understand Christ Himself. So too, by 'His Angels' many understand the believers who have overcome the Dragon and his Angels, as is hereinafter asserted (v. 11)."

Second. The course of this grim war should very carefully be noted. "Michael and His Angels fought against the Dragon. And the Dragon fought, and his Angels ¾ but he did not prevail. Neither was their place any longer found in Heaven. So the great Dragon was cast out, that old Serpent called the Devil and Satan who deceives the whole World. He was cast out onto the Earth, and his Angels were cast out with him."

Here we learn that the Devil and his agents and wicked Pagan Rome as his lackey and all of its leaders ¾ would not prevail in that sustained warfare. To the contrary!

Christ and His followers would prevail over Satan ¾ especially during the days of Constantine. Thus Andreas of Caesarea, the Calvinistic Dordt Dutch Bible, Cotton Mather, Jonathan Edwards, Aaron Burr, Isaac Backus, Adam Clarke, and Albert Barnes.

In fact, Christ and His followers prevail over Satan ¾ right down to Christ's Final Coming. Thus Augustine of Hippo and Bernard of Clairvaux.

As David Brown points out, Lucifer and his Angels, who became Satan and his Demons, lost their hold in "Heaven" (alias the high and influential place of civilized life). They were driven out "onto the Earth" (alias into the lower and less-influential positions of civilized life) ¾ and then even outside of civilization and into the barbarian parts of the Earth.

Previously, Satan himself had been 'enthroned' in Smyrna and in Pergamos and in Thyatira and in Philadelphia and throughout the Pagan Roman Empire. Yet that was followed by a protracted war in those places ¾ between Satan's followers on the one hand, and the followers of Michael-Christ on the other.

During that struggle, Christians slowly but surely gained the ascendancy. Indeed, Satan and his followers were finally driven out of the 'heavenly' or high and important places of the Roman Empire. That occurred especially at the time of its formal christianization from 313-321 A.D. onward (following the conversion of the Roman Emperor Constantine to Christianity).

That did not totally eliminate Paganism even within the Roman Empire. Yet it certainly dethroned it throughout the Mediterranean World. It replaced Pagans with Christians in positions of control ¾ alias in all the 'heavenly' socio-political offices in the nominally christianized Roman Empire.

As the Calvinistic Geneva Bible comments, "the dragon was deprived of all his dignity." In fact, he "had no more place" to stand in high society.

Third. The result of this downfall of Pagan Rome, was the recognition of the Kingdom of Christ as the one and only official government of the Roman Empire from that time onward.

This does not, of course, mean that the Kingdom of Christ had not existed (on a small scale) here on Earth before that time. Nor does it mean that the kingdom of Satan did not continue to exist here on Earth (and even in the lower or 'earthly' regions within the now-nominally-christianized Roman Empire itself) after that time. But it certainly means that now, for the first time in the History of the World since the incarnation of Christ, not just an entire Nation but even a whole powerful Empire did at least profess allegiance to the Lord Jesus as the only King of kings.

For that reason, the Apostle could now predict: "I heard a loud voice saying in Heaven: 'Now salvation and strength and the Kingdom of our God and the power of His Christ has come! For the accuser of our brethren has been cast down.... Then they [our brethren] overcame [or conquered] him by the blood of the Lamb and by the Word of their testimony. And even unto death, they did not love their lives [the way they now loved the Lamb]!'"

As the Calvinistic Geneva Bible rightly comments in its heading to this chapter, here "the victory is gotten, to the comfort of the faithful." Even prior to their deaths, Members of the Church Militant here on Earth overcame Satan. By the grace of Michael-Christ, they conquered. They actually conquered Satan. Indeed, it was they (they themselves) that conquered him.

Satan had accused the Early Christian Church. Sometimes, He had persecuted her. But she and her Angel-Preachers, fighting with the spiritual weapons of the blood of Michael-Jesus and the prophetic Word of God, had witnessed faithfully ¾ without swerving.

Now, they and their successors had overcome Satan and his party. They had driven him from his previously-dominant control of the Roman Empire. And henceforth, the Christians themselves would now begin to exercise that control ¾ now that Rome had been christianized, at least nominally.

For "the Kingdom of our God and the power of His Christ" had now come to a position of "salvation and strength" or blessing and vigour or health and haleness. Indeed, that had now occurred even within the very leadership of the Roman Empire itself.

"Therefore rejoice ¾ you Heavens, and you who dwell in them!" Rejoice ¾ you Heavenly Bodies; you Stars; you now-christianized Political Leaders! And rejoice ¾ you who dwell in such heavenly places; you who live within the now-at-least-nominally christianized Roman Empire! Rejoice ¾ because now you can rest from the persecutions which your fathers suffered here and there, from time to time, in the Roman Empire ¾ before Satan was dethroned in its territories!

Rejoice too, you Westerners of the twenty-first century, in your freedom to worship God in Spirit and in truth! Rejoice in the freedom most of your forefathers in less-christianized times and lands did not have!

Indeed, rejoice all you peoples ¾ everywhere! Rejoice in the benefits of Western civilization, itself the fruit of its earlier christianization ¾ in spite of its recent backslidings especially since the French Revolution!

See in Satan's Roman dethronement (and in his being cast out thence onto the "Earth"), a blessed foretaste of his ongoing dethronement everywhere! We conclude from all of this, the actuality and the ever-increasing certainty of Satan's progressive arrest ¾ and his relegation even into the bottomless pit to which he has so justly been predestinated. For, as the Calvinistic Geneva Bible again comments ¾ when Satan "was cast onto the Earth," he "was overcome by Christ."

O Christian, may we too overcome Satan and all his followers in our own day! May we overcome him by the blood of the Lamb and by the Word of our testimony! And with those spiritual weapons, may we cast Satan's cohorts too out of all of their positions of influence!

May we see to it that Christians replace them there ¾ to the glory of God! May salvation and strength and the Kingdom of our God and the power of His Christ come into their own ¾ even among us! And may we ever rejoice to see Satan and his followers cast down ¾ and Christianity everywhere on the rise toward its ascendancy!

So on, then, Christian soldiers! Onward, to victory!

Revelation 12:14-17 December 19

It should not be presumed that the nominal christianization of the Pagan Roman Empire during the fourth century A.D. represented the termination of the struggles of Christ's Church even within that Empire. To the contrary. In some respects, it chiefly changed merely the nature of the struggle between the Christians on the one hand and the Devil's party on the other.

For down until then ¾ the greatest opposition to Christianity, at least after the breaking of the power of the Judaists in 70 A.D., had come from the Roman State and her Political Leaders. But from then on, these latter were now the allies of the Church ¾ though allies much lacking in dedication.

First. It should carefully be noted that this nominal christianization of the Roman Empire by Constantine ¾ by no means implies that all opposition to Christianity from outside the Church now ceased. For outside the Church, and especially outside the now-nominally-christianized Roman Empire, the Devil still retained his hold as tightly as ever in the never-christianized areas of the World.

Indeed, even inside the now-nominally-christianized Roman Empire, Satan henceforth concentrated on the lower social strata and on those that dwelt in the less-important regions on the fringe of the Roman landmass or "Earth." This would before too long be seen first in the attacks of the Pagan Visigoths and Huns and Vandals and Ostrogoths upon the Roman Empire; then in the speedy spread of Islam in the peripheral areas of and adjacent to the Roman Empire from the seventh century onward; and finally in the increasing Papal-Roman persecution of the saints right down to the Protestant Reformation and beyond.

The "Heavens" alias the higher powers of the Empire and those who dwell in them, might well indeed rejoice. But the "Earth" or the lower regions of the Empire and of the distant parts of the (Mediterranean) Sea and their still-unchristianized residents, would soon have little to rejoice about. For (in the opinion of many expositors) through first the Pagan Visigoths and Huns and Vandals and Ostrogoths, and then through Mohammad's Moslem persecution of the Church in those lower regions and also through Papal Rome's persecution of True Christians ¾ "the Devil has come down to you, having great wrath." "Woe to the inhabitants of the Earth and of the Sea!"

Second. It is comforting to note that the duration of the Devil's new "great wrath" ¾ is severely limited. In fact, his very knowledge of this big limitation heightens the intensity of his wrath ¾ precisely "because he knows that he has but a short time" to terrorize the inhabitants of the Earth and the Sea.

For even while venting his wrath upon the unsaved, the Devil ¾ however gradually ¾ was constantly in retreat before the steadily advancing expansion of Christianity. And this, even in spite of many temporary setbacks to the True Church.

The Devil had but a short time before he lost yet more ground even among "the inhabitants of the Earth and of the Sea" in the lower strata of the Empire. And after that, when Christianity would continue its expansion into "the regions beyond" even outside of the Roman Empire, the Devil would slowly but surely lose ground there too ¾ till later still "he would deceive the Nations no more." For ultimately ¾ not only the "Heavens" or the higher regions but even "the Earth shall be full of the knowledge of the Lord, as the waters cover the sea."

Third. A new time of persecution, however, first awaited the True Church of Christ. For even after the political dethronement of Satan the Dragon and his tool the Pagan Roman Empire following the conversion to Christianity of Emperor Constantine and the resultant nominal christianization of the Empire from the fourth century onward ¾ "when the Dragon saw that he had been cast onto the Earth, he persecuted the woman who brought forth the male child.... Then the Dragon got angry with the woman, and went to make war against the rest of her seed which keeps the Commandments of God and holds to the testimony of Jesus Christ."

The "war in Heaven" between Michael-Christ and His Angels [and Disciples] on the one hand and the Satanic Dragon and his party on the other, thus by no means ceased after the victorious nominal christianization of the heavenly regions of the Roman Empire during the third century. To the contrary, from now on, that "war" still continued ¾ but on a different plane.

Hitherto, the war against Christianity had been waged chiefly by political power. Yet from now on, however, it would be waged chiefly for religious reasons ¾ and by apostates and heretics.

Horrible persecution of the Christian Church would be inflicted by the Moslems ¾ first by the Arabs, and centuries later again by the Turks. It is instructive to note that Islam was originally nothing but a syncretism between apostasy from Christianity, and Paganism. Nevertheless, Islam does not consider itself to be Christian. Rather does Islam regards itself as the perfection of the True Religion taught by all of the Prophets from Adam to Jesus ¾ which True Religion Islam asserts Christianity had later corrupted.

An even greater though less obvious threat to Christianity, however, was soon to come from inside the Christian Church herself ¾ from the syncretism between Christianity and Neo-Paganism in general and the institution of the Papacy in particular. This Romish syncretism, though not completely apostate, was and is nevertheless heretical ¾ even though (unlike Islam) Romanism still considers itself to be legitimately Christian.

Fourth. We should clearly distinguish: the Pagan-Roman Beast; Mohammad the False-Prophet; and the Papal-Roman Whore. By the latter, we mean the system of Roman Catholic-ism (including even such apostate "Protestants" as appease it) ¾ and not, of course, individual Roman Cathol-ics, some of whom are genuine Christians in spite of their 'Babylonian captivity' within the very bosom of the Papal-Romish Whore (within which most of them were conceived and from which they all should certainly withdraw themselves).

Pagan Rome (and each of its political successors, such as Humanism in our own day) was a Beast. It was an instrument of brute political force, but one making no religious claims. Mohammad's Islam is a system of false-prophecy ¾ a politico-religious force which claims to be religiously-prophetic even while opposing Christianity. But the Romish Papacy is pre-eminently a Whore which, while claiming to be the very bride of Christ, is in fact "the mother of harlots and abominations of the Earth."

Fifth. Papal Rome, then, imitates the True Church or bride of Christ. The Proto-Protestant or True Church is the good "woman [which] fled into the Wilderness, where she has a place prepared by God." Yet even the Romish Whore sometimes fled away (from the advancing armies of Moslems) into the Wilderness ¾ so that many nominal Romanists too perished, as did also Proto-Protestant Christians, in the Wilderness or deserts of North Africa at the hands of the hordes of Islam. Indeed, even those who did not perish thus, lived on in their monasteries ¾ or in the Wilderness.

However, the Bishop of Rome alone was called "Pope" for the very first time ¾ precisely in the very generation Islam got under way, at the beginning of the seventh century. From about that time onward, Papal Rome began to persecute the Proto-Protestant True Church of Christ and her children, ever-increasingly ¾ just as fiercely as did Rome's co-heretical Islamitic cousin.

In all of this, the True Church of Christ became the Refugee Church ¾ "the Church in the Wilderness," as it were. For it was there in the Wilderness that she crept away into isolated areas ¾ to avoid persecution from the essentially-political Islam, as well as (almost contemporaneously) from the increasingly-politicizing Papacy.

Comments the Historicalistic because Calvinistic Dordt Dutch Bible (on Revelation 12:7-15): "This war and victory must here be understood of an exceptional appropriation of the first victory of Christ which would yet follow against Satan in the Members of Christ. Of this Christ Himself speaks in Matthew 16:18 and Paul in Romans 16:20 ¾ namely during the times of persecution and seduction under Pagan and Arian Emperors and other heretical kings.

"Then, Christ was opposed severely, in His Members ¾ especially also when the [papal] Antichrist in the West and the Mohammadans in the East got the upper hand, and suppressed the Church of Christ throughout the whole World. This is clearly proved from the time of one thousand two hundred and sixty days attributed to the flight of the woman in the Wilderness, after this struggle."

Opposing both Preterism and Futurism the Dordt Dutch Bible goes on: "Some here take 'a time' as a year; '[two] times' as two years; and 'half a time' as half a year.... They hold that the time of Antichrist's dominion would last no longer than three-and-a-half years.... But this view has been refuted at 11:3. Moreover, it is powerfully refuted in that ¾ if it were to be correct ¾ the Day of Judgment would, against the testimony of Christ [in] Mark 13:32, already have been known even during the time of the Antichrist....

"Scripture testifies that this mystery of unrighteousness already began working in Paul's time, Second Thessalonians 2:7, and that the Jews themselves will be converted and gathered unto the True Church of Christ before the end of the World. Romans 11:35; Second Corinthians 3:14; etc. Therefore this 'time' and [two] times' and 'half-a-time' must be taken as a time indeed known to God but not to us before it has ended....

"Every day is taken as a year.... This time, the Church of Christ shall be nourished in the Wilderness ¾ when the Outer Court of the Temple shall remain unmeasured; and the Holy City shall be trampled down by heathen; and the two witnesses shall prophesy; and a holy war shall be waged against the [true] saints....

"Some think that these are the persecutions which [the papal] Antichrist stirred up against the Greek Church ¾ because the latter [then] did not wish to received idolatry and invoking the saints and honouring of its relicts and its dominion ¾ which was long resisted by a few of the Greek Emperors. Others think that these are rather the persecutions stirred up against the Hussites in Bohemia and other places...together with the co-operation of the Emperors and Kings with the [papal] Antichrist when the Church began to stick her head out after the time of Luther."

Sixth. God, however, protected His true bride even against the Satanic anger of both Islam and the Papacy. "To the woman were given two wings of a great eagle, so that she might fly into the Wilderness into her place where she is nourished for a time and [two] times and half a time [alias one thousand two hundred and sixty years], away from the face of the Serpent."

Here the True Church, like a great eagle with her two God-given wings of faith and prayer, soars aloft and easily escapes her unsuccessful pursuit by the Serpent Satan and his new tool of Papal Rome. Nor is the wilderness or the desert a culturally-barren locality. For it was precisely in the Wilderness that also the Older Testament's Church developed all her arts and crafts to the glory of God.

Indeed, it was also precisely in the Wilderness that even the Whore of Papal Rome ¾ imitating the True Church ¾ acquired its own great wealth, and attained its own impressive cultural achievements. Thus, even in the rough parts of the Wilderness, the Church is nourished with God's good food at the hand of faithful Christian servants ¾ food in the Wilderness, comments the Calvinistic Geneva Bible, "which the Lord had appointed for her."

Still, the True Church was now indeed in the Wilderness. No longer was she in the "heavenly" position of political influence, as she was right after the conversion of Constantine. For, with the later rise of the Papacy, the leadership of the Roman Empire certainly became de-christianized in practice (if not also in theory).

This happened in a subtle and highly deceptive way. The leadership also of the visibly-organized "Church" became corrupt ¾ just as the Pharisaical leadership of the Israelitic Church had previously become ¾ right prior to its Christian Reformation.

Now the True Church had fled away from corrupt Israel into the Wilderness of Judea before A.D. 70. So too, after the Papal-Romish corruption of the nominally-christianized Pagan-Roman Empire, would the True Church again flee into the Wilderness ¾ but this time, for the centuries-long period of 1260 "day"-years.

During that time, the resuscitated and reheathenizing Roman Empire would work in conjunction with the Papal-Romish Whore. Together, they would persecute the true bride of Christ in the Wilderness.

For the Papal Whore persecuted the Waldensians in the "Wilderness" of their mountain fastnesses. She accused and indicted Huss and Wycliffe and even Luther and Calvin and others in her heretical ecclesiastical councils and even on the torture-racks and in the dungeons of her iniquitous inquisitions. And this is why even the Pilgrims and the Puritans fled both from Romish and from Apostate-Protestant persecution, to havens like the North American and South African "Wildernesses" both before and after that general time.

However, even during that centuries-long time of Papal-Romish and even Prelatical persecutions, Christ would nevertheless continue to sustain His true bride. For His Earth itself ¾ would swallow up the flood-waters of persecution and false-doctrine that belched forth out of the mouth of that Satanic Serpent, the great red Dragon.

As the Geneva Bible rightly comments: "God gives means to His Church to escape the fury of Satan." For thus God Himself causes "His creatures to serve to the support thereof."

Moreover, the "rest" of the woman's "seed" is the Body of Christ of which Jesus Himself is the Head (thus the Geneva Bible). It is "the Church after the Roman Emperors" (thus Matthew Poole), and includes the loyal Proto-Protestants (thus Adam Clarke). It represents especially "the Church after 1260 years" (thus Joseph Priestley and even the Roman Catholic Douay Bible) ¾ yes, even post-mediaeval True Christians (thus Albert Barnes). In one word, it means 'the True Church' (thus the Dordt Dutch Bible, Thomas Scott, and the D'Oyly & Mant Bible) ¾ and "includes all of Christ's brethren" (thus the Afrikaans Bible with Explanatory Notes).

Albert Barnes comments: "These [are] prophetic days, in which a day denotes a year. Twelve hundred and sixty years...I regard...as referring to the proper continuance of the papal power ¾ during which the True Church would remain in comparative obscurity, as if driven into a desert.... After the pagan persecutions ceased and Christianity was firmly established in the Empire..., Satan['s]...enmity was vented...in the rise of the Papacy, and in the persecutions under that....

"Pure spiritual religion ¾ that of the New Testament ¾ has never been wholly extinct. In the history of the Waldenses and...the Bohemian Brethren...in...places of obscurity...the True Religion has been kept up in the World....

"The reference here is to the opposition which Satan makes to the True Church, under the persecutions and corruptions of the Papacy.... It were the purpose of Papal Rome, to sweep it [the True Church] entirely away....

"Cruelties practised in the Inquisition on individual Christians" ¾ were intensified "in the persecution of such men as Wycliffe, John Huss, and Jerome of Prague.... This warfare against individual Christians was continued long in the Papal Church....

"The Papacy commences a new opposition against the spiritual Church of Christ.... Still filled with rage ¾ though incapable of destroying the True Church itself ¾ he [Satan] turns his wrath, under the form of papal persecutions, against individual Christians."

Consequently, the "rest" of the woman's "seed" is much greater in number then was her first male child Whom the Roman Puppet-King Herod had so feebly sought to destroy. And this ever-increasing "seed" continued to keep the Commandments of God and to hold to the testimony of Jesus Christ even in the Wilderness ¾ without flinching.

For, as the Calvinistic Geneva Bible remarks: "Satan was not able to destroy the Head ¾ or the Body." Meantime (according to some of the manuscripts), the Dragon ¾ unable to reach that remnant in the Wilderness ¾ frustratedly went and "stood upon the sand of the Sea."

However, one day, the centuries-long 1260 years of the True Church's sojourn in the cultural Wilderness would terminate. It began to terminate, about the time of the Protestant Reformation and the establishment of the new Protestant powers (of Switzerland and the Netherlands and Great Britain and Huguenot South Africa and especially Puritan North America). And it still continues to terminate, in progressive stages, by the powerful and still-increasing preaching of the unadulterated Word of God by the True Church.

For that ever-increasing remnant of the woman's "seed" will triumph over the Satanic Serpent and the Roman Whore ¾ as too did Jesus Christ as the 'firstborn' "child" or "seed" of the "woman." This triumphant advance will continue ¾ until the expanding Christian remnant, like Christ Himself, is exalted to the throne of God and participates in Christ's shepherdly rule over all Nations, right here on Earth, with His rod of iron (or the sword of the Lord which is the Word of God).

O Christian, Satan bellows loud! But he cannot even harm ¾ and still less destroy ¾ the True Church of the Lord Jesus Christ. Soaring higher aloft on the faithful and prayerful two wings of a great eagle, as it were ¾ she ever ascends away from the Devil and toward the heavenly-enthroned Christ Himself. For even God's Earth assists her cause ¾ and frustrates all the iniquitous inundations of the Devil and all his agents.

Let us then keep the Commandments of God and overcome Satan and all his agents! And let us expand that Decalogue-demanding loyal remnant ¾ until the True Church's 1260 years in the cultural Wilderness completely fade into the unpleasant memories of the past, and until the Church fully emerges from that Wilderness to repossess the inheritance of the entire World as her Promised Land!

So on, then, Christian soldiers! Onward, to victory!

Revelation 13 December 20

We have seen how the dragonlike power of Satan's agents, even after the nominal christianization of the Roman Empire, would sometimes still continue to persecute the true children of God. Next, we give details as to how the later Romish Papacy ¾ would give a new lease of life to the increasingly corrupt elements in the political body then soon to become the 'Holy Roman Empire' (which the latter had inherited from earlier Rome as its predecessor).

First. John had just described how the great red Dragon Satan himself was frustrated ¾ in that he could not even reach the True Church in the Wilderness. The Apostle then went on to record that either that Dragon or he himself (or both) now went and "stood upon the sand of the Sea."

The God-inspired John then predicted: "I saw a Beast [now] rising up out of the Sea. It had seven Heads and ten Horns; and upon its Horns ten crowns; and upon its Heads the name of blasphemy."

As the Calvinistic Geneva Bible comments about this first Beast of Revelation chapter thirteen: "Here is a description of the Roman Empire, which stands in [or consists of] cruelty and tyranny." The 'seven Heads' signify "Rome ¾ because it was first governed by seven Kings or Emperors after Nero, and also is compassed about with seven mountains." And the Roman Empire's 'ten Horns' are said to "signify many provinces."

Now here, the Post-Constantinian Roman Beast standing on the edge of the Wilderness (and seen at the end of Revelation chapter twelve) ¾ seems to call forth a similar Beast from the Sea (seen at the beginning of Revelation chapter thirteen). At any rate, according to the Calvinistic Geneva Bible, the First Beast of Revelation thirteen having blasphemy upon its Heads and wearing crowns upon its Horns ¾ is not Nero but "seven Kings or Emperors after Nero." (For the Calvinistic Geneva Bible is not Preteristic ¾ but Historicalistic.)

Revelation thirteen's Post-Neronian blasphemous Beast wearing ten crowns not on its seven Heads but upon its ten Horns (which grew out of only one of the later Heads), strongly resembles the red and dragonlike creature described at the beginning of Revelation chapter twelve. For both have seven Heads and ten crowns; both are infused with the evil spirit of that old Dragon and Serpent the Devil; and both are apparently aspects of the Ancient Roman World.

Indeed, both Revelation twelve's red and dragonlike creature and Revelation thirteen's first Beast ¾ are 'ancestors' also of Revelation thirteen's second Beast (which looks like a lamb but which speaks like a dragon). More-over, together with that second 'lamb-like' Beast ¾ they are 'ancestors' also of the later or third and "scarlet-coloured Beast full of names of blasphemy, having seven Heads and ten Horns" ¾ the Beast that then carries, and then carries, the Papal-Romish Whore.

As such, there is a basic continuity underlying all three of these Roman Beasts. They are all driven by the Satanic Dragon of Revelation twelve.

Yet there are also important differences between the three Beasts. These differences show that those monsters are not wholly identical, but that the latter two each as it were 'evolves' from its predecessor.

As Rev. Professor Dr. Martin Luther points out: "Here, then, are the two Beasts. The one is the Empire. The other, with the two horns, is the Papacy ¾ which has now become a temporal Kingdom yet with the reputation and Name of Christ....

"The Pope restored the fallen Roman Empire.... It [the thus-restored Empire] is an image of the Roman Empire, rather than the body of the Empire as it once was. Nevertheless, he [the Pope] puts spirit and life into this image...and actually operates it to some extent. This is the image [of that] which was wounded, but did live" or still kept on surviving nevertheless.

Also Hengstenberg comments on Revelation 12:18 to 13:10, that "these three enemies of God's Kingdom to which the whole group refers, are not co-ordinate with each other.... The second [Revelation 12:2b-3a] is the vassal and instrument of the first [Revelation 12:17-18 alias 13:1a & 13:2b]. And the third [Revelation 13:11] is the abettor of the second [Revelation 13:16]." Consequently, many have identified even the Sea-Beast of Revelation 13:1f with the Papacy-in-embryo of Revelation 13:11f.

Now the red and dragonlike monster at the beginning of Revelation chapter twelve ¾ wears seven crowns upon its seven Heads. The latter, seven mountains and seven Kings, represent Pre-Constantinian Pagan Rome. Thus Tertullian, Victorinus, Pareus, Mede, the Calvinistic Dordt Dutch Bible, Tillinghast, Goodwin, and Matthew Henry etc.

Yet the Roman 'Sea Beast' at the Beginning of Revelation chapter thirteen no longer wears its crowns upon its seven Heads. Nor does it have only seven ¾ but fully ten crowns. Indeed, it wears those ten crowns not upon its seven Heads but upon its ten Horns ¾ apparently all of which grow out of only one of the Heads ¾ its seventh or youngest and latest Head which succeeded the previous ones.

The great Puritan, Rev. Professor Dr. Joseph Mede, points this out. So too does Hengstenberg: "The ten Horns [in Revelation 13:1], which denote ten Kings (chapter 17:12) ¾ that is, ten Kingdoms ¾ do not exist along with the Heads [alias all seven Heads]. But they sit upon the seventh Head."

This clearly points to an Early-Mediaeval tenfold dismemberment or "deadly wound[ing]" of the only-nominally-christianized Roman Empire after the Fall of Rome in the fifth century A.D. Thus: Irenaeus, Hippolytus, the Venerable Bede, Walafrid Strabo, Waldo, Luther, Melanchthon, Knox, and many other Theologians.

The transfer of the political throne of the Roman Empire from Rome to Constantinople already in 330 A.D., gave a stimulus for Rome itself to become the ecclesiastical throne of the the Romish Church. But the former also hastened the collapse of the Western Roman Empire politically, before the barbarian hordes from the North ¾ to be followed by the political fragmentation of the Western Roman Empire into the ten toes or the ten Horns alias the ten Kingdoms or divided Political Governments of mediaeval Western Europe.

So this first Roman monster alias the Sea-Beast is immediately followed and kept 'alive' by the second (or 'lamb-like) Beast' ¾ mentioned in the latter half of Revelation thirteen. This second Beast, the Papacy ¾ which looks like a two-horned lamb but speaks like a dragon ¾ revives and perpetuates the commemoration of the first Roman monster alias the Sea-Beast.

The next Roman monster (of Revelation chapter seventeen) is the international political Beast of "peoples and multitudes and Nations and tongues" after the Papal-Romish scarlet Whore (alias the 'lamb-like Beast' of Revelation thirteen) has mounted it and sought to steer it ¾ particularly from the time of the papal crowning of Emperor Charlemagne at the beginning of the ninth century onward. Thus Joachim of Floris, Dante, Osiander, Von Amsdorff, Chytraeus, Hooper, Pareus ¾ and even Romanists like Blasius Viegas, Francisco Ribera, Cornelius De Lapide, and Cardinal Bellarmin.

First. There is continuity between these three phases in the 'evolutionary' development of Rom-an-ism. Indeed, Daniel's Fourth Kingdom and Fourth Beast can be identified as Rome-as-such. Throughout, John was describing all of these developments in terms of conditions already operative in his own day.

The following Pre-Reformation Theologians regarded Rev. 13:1f's Sea-Beast as Antichrist: Irenaeus, Tertullian, Cyprian, Victorinus, Lactantius, Ephraim, Ambrose, Augustine, Primasius, Andreas of Caesarea, Bede, Berengaud, Walafrid Strabo, Haymo, Bruno Segni, Peter Waldo, Bernard of Clairvaux, Richard of St. Victor, Joachim of Floris, Eberhard of Salzburg, Pierre d'Olivi, Albert the Great, Ubertino of Casale, John Wycliffe, Walter Brute, Matthias of Janow, John Purvey, and John Huss.

The following Protestant Reformers did the same: Tyndale, Osiander, Joye, Bale, Von Amsdorff, Virgil Solis, Conrad, Jewel, and Bullinger.

And the following Post-Reformational Pre-Puritan Protestants did the same: Foxe, Napier, Pacard, Brightman, Cappel, Pareus, Cramer, James the First, Grotius, Alsted, Mede, Gerhard, and Helwig.

The same view was taken by Puritans and Post-Puritans like: John Cotton, Tillinghast, Durham, Holyoake, Cocceius, Increase Mather, Spener, Sherwin, Goodwin, Roger Williams, Jurieu, Phillipot, Cotton Mather, Fleming, Matthew Henry, Sir Isaac Newton, John Willison, and Jonathan Edwards. Thus was done also by later Conservatives such as: Bengel, Backus, Petri, John Gill, Bishop Thomas Newton, John Wesley, Hopkins, Dwight, Belknap, Faber, Fuller, Cunninghame, Keith, Scott, Junkin, Hinton, Bishop Elliott, and Albert Barnes.

Already in A.D. 840, Walafrid Strabo suggested that Rev. 13:1f's Sea-Beast adumbrated the Papacy-in-embryo. In this he was followed, with increasing emphasis, by: Waldo, Eberhard, Wycliffe, Matthias of Janow, Purvey, Huss, Tyndale, Osiander, Joye, Bale, Von Amsdorff, Virgil Solis, Conrad, Jewel, Bullinger, James the First, the Westminster Theologians who authored the Westminster Confession, John Cotton, Tillinghast, Cocceius, Goodwin, Roger Williams, Cotton Mather, Sir Isaac Newton, John Willison, Jonathan Edwards, Bengel, Aaron Burr, Backus, Gill, Bishop Thomas Newton, John Wesley, Hopkins, Dwight, Belknap, and most Protestant commentators from 1800 onward such as David Brown and Bonar and Fairbairn ¾ prior to the Church's massive collapse into theological liberalism through the impact of the earlier so-called 'Enlightenment' and the French Revolution.

Second. This continuity between the various Roman Beasts of Revelation chapters twelve and thirteen and seventeen, however ¾ although it applies to Rome throughout most of the period of her historical development ¾ applies not only to Rome. It also reaches back even to Ancient Babylon itself ¾ and even stretches forward to the religious establishments and/or political dictatorships also of today and tomorrow.

For the Beast mentioned at the beginning of Revelation chapter thirteen, does in fact symbolize all of the successive heathen World Empires of the past (and perhaps all those of the future too). For like all four of Daniel's Beasts, the First Beast of Revelation thirteen also rose up "out of the Sea" ¾ out of the troubled Heathen World.

To stress its continuity with Daniel's four Beasts, it is recorded in Revelation thirteen that the First Beast there "was like a leopard, and its feet were like the feet of a bear, and its mouth like the mouth of a lion ¾ and the Dragon gave it its power." This reminds one of Daniel's Babylonian lion and Medo-Person bear and Grecian leopard and Roman 'dragon' all rolled into one.

Again, like the statue in Nebuchadnezzar's dream, the remnants of all four of these different Beasts in Daniel are here at the beginning of Revelation thirteen amassed into one as the godless State ¾ in this case, as the dechristianizing Post-Constantinian "Power State." For, as the Calvinistic Geneva Bible rightly comments: "By these Beasts are signified the Macedonians, Persians and Chaldeans ¾ whom the Romans overcame."

Yet throughout, "the Dragon" alias Satan himself gave the Babylonian-Medopersian-Grecian-Roman World-imperial Beast both its religious as well as its political power. For the Devil gave both the Beast and its throne or "its seat" very "great authority." As the Calvinistic Geneva Bible once again comments, the Dragon which gave the First Beast of Revelation thirteen its power, "is the Devil."

Third. We are told that but one of the seven Heads of this 'Antichristian' Beast, was then "wounded to death." Here again, inasmuch as this was a deadly wound, the supposition is that the seven Heads of the Beast were successive rather than contemporaneous ¾ and that the first six Heads were by then all defunct. For otherwise, the remaining six Heads ¾ if they themselves had still been functioning ¾ could easily have kept the Beast alive. And in that case, its wound would then not have been "deadly" or mortal.

Yet being successive, the seven Heads probably signify not merely seven Roman Emperors. But ¾ as can be seen from the other lion-like and leopard-like and bear-like and dragon-like parts of that same Beast ¾ the latter far rather seems to represent seven successive World Empires.

Accordingly, the Head that was "wounded to death" at that time ¾ was the Roman Head of a successive series of seven Ancient World Empires. Such would then be: the Egyptian, the Assyrian, the Babylonian, the Medo-Persian, the Grecian, the Pagan-Roman, and the modern Papal Empire. For the wounded Head is the sixth or Roman Head that was already ruling in John's own day.

Revelation 13:1-10's Sea-Beast was equated with Rome-as-such by the Early Church. Thus: Irenaeus, Tertullian, Hippolytus, Victorinus, Lactantius, Tichonius, Ambrose, Augustine, Orosius, Jerome, Andreas of Caesarea, Oecumenius, the Venerable Bede, Walafrid Strabo, Aretus, and many others.

It was equated with Post-Constantinian and degenerate Mediaeval Rome by many Mid- and Late-Mediaeval Theologians such as Berengaud, Waldo, Joachim of Floris, Eberhard of Salzburg, Pierre d'Olivi, Ubertino of Casale, Dante Aleghieri, Michael Rupercissa, Petrarch, John Milicx, Wycliffe, Matthias of Janow, John Purvey, Walter Brute, Huss, and Savanorola.

The same identification was made by the Early Protestant Reformers. Thus: Luther, Oecolampadius, Melanchthon, Tyndale, Joye, Osiander, Knox, the Calvinistic Geneva Bible, Hooper, Bale, Latimer, Ridley, Von Amsdorff, Flaccius Illyricus, Bullinger, Funck, and Virgil Solis. Indeed, before the rise of theological liberalism round about the time of the French Revolution, the same identification was made also by nearly all later Protestants ¾ such as: Jewel, Cranmer, Foxe, Napier, James the First, Brightman, Pareus, the Calvinistic Dordt Dutch Bible, Gerhard, Cramer, Alsted, Grotius, Mede, Durham, Alsted, Cocceius, John Cotton, Parker, Increase Mather, Spener, Cressener, Jurieu, Matthew Henry, Fleming, Daubuz, Jonathan Edwards, Bishop Thomas Newton, J.A. Bengel, Petri, John Brown of Haddington, Thomas Scott, Adam Clarke, Hinton, Junkin, Lacunza, Faber, Fuller, Cunninghame, Keith, Cox, Bishop Elliott, David Brown, Patrick Fairbairn, William Symington, Albert Barnes, J.P. Lange, Apostolos Makrakis, J. Marcellus Kik, and many others.

Fourth. The international political Beast's sixth or Pagan-Roman Head ¾ endured from the fall of the Grecian Empire prior to 64 B.C., right down to the emergence of the lamb-like Beast alias the Papacy after the destruction of Rome at the hands of the Goths in the fifth century A.D. This shows that it was during this time that the Roman Head (as distinct from the Beast-as-such alias the successive series of World Empires), was "wounded to death."

Indeed, it was only during that (Gothic) age that the Beast was now said to be rising up out of the Sea ¾ the great Sea of Nations. And it was only after this Fall of Rome to the Goths that the previously-monolithic Roman Empire began to break up into the ten provinces or kingdoms of Early-Mediaeval Western Europe represented by the Beast's ten Horns each wearing a crown.

Certainly the Pre-Constantinian Pagan-Roman Empire was also wounded to death in principle when Christ Himself was wounded to death in practice ¾ before He rose again three days later. And, again like the resurrected Christ Who revived after His death ¾ also the 'resurrected' Beast's deadly "wound was healed." This occurred when the Pagan-Roman Empire remarkably continued for centuries, even after Calvary. Yet this is not one of the many events to which Revelation thirteen is referring.

Once more. The Roman Beast was later yet again "wounded to death" at its nominal christianization during the fourth century ¾ after Emperor Constantine's conversion to Christianity. However, even this "deadly wound was healed" ¾ in the subsequent apostasization of much of the Visible Christian Church after Emperor Theodosius (thus Matthew Poole), and under the influence of wicked Emperors such as Julian the Apostate and specially the cruel Phocas.

Thus the Roman Empire was "wounded to death" by the Fall of Rome to the Goths in A.D. 476. This is perhaps the central meaning of the text here at this point..

However, even that barbarian and "deadly wound" was "healed" once more. That occurred when political Rome was 'resurrected from the dead' ¾ and re-emerged under the Papacy as the so-called 'Holy Roman Empire' with its ten Kingdoms of Europe (namely England, France, Germany, Switzerland, Portugal, Spain, Italy, Austria, Central Europe, and Eastern Europe).

The above-mentioned ten Kingdoms do seem to be represented here by the Beast's ten crowned Horns or Hings or Kingdoms. For those ten Kingdoms grew precisely out of the very Head ¾ the sixth or Roman one ¾ which received the deadly wound.

It is, therefore, particularly this A.D. 476 wounding which is probably being referred to here. For historically, it was precisely after the division of the later Roman Empire into ten Romish Kingdoms since 476 A.D. that the deadly wound was indeed healed ¾ particularly by the next-mentioned and 'lamb-like' Beast of the Romish Papacy.

Observe: that the ten Romish Kingdoms only came into being after the beginning of the sixth century; that the Bishop of Rome alone was called sole "Pope" only from the beginning of the seventh century; and that the first clear augmentations of the powers of the revived 'Holy Roman Empire' (under Emperor Pepin the Short) and of the rising Papacy (under Pope Zacharias) began to show themselves very conspicuously only from about the middle of the eighth century onward. That was after Pepin's father Charles Martel had defeated the even more religio-political Islamic armies in France, and saved Europe from the religion of Mohammad.

As the Calvinistic Dordt Dutch Bible notes: "Constantine, the two Theodosiuses, Gratian, and a few other good and Christian Emperors promoted the Church for a period of time. Yet there were then also a few pagan and heretical Emperors and Kings who, having given their power to the Dragon, persecuted the Congregations of Christ and orthodox Preachers ¾ until finally, under imperial rule in the West, around the years 400-500 A.D., this Beast received a mortal wound when the northern Nations (the Lombards, Goths, Huns and Vandals) captured the city of Rome up to five times, and finally destroyed it.

"From that demise, the Antichrist finally brought forth his kingdom ¾ when Emperor Justinian around 550 drove off these barbarian Nations...and exalted the Bishop of Rome anew, whom the cruel Emperor Phocas pronounced to be Universal Bishop [alias sole Pope] in the year 606[-666f A.D.].

"Thereby the wound in the Head of the Beast was again healed, and he was revered among all Nations.... This wound was fully healed by Pepin ¾ and Charlemagne, who around 700-800 enthroned the Bishop of Rome in his full possession when the ten Kings who arose with him added their power to him."

Fifth. After the Beast's sixth or Roman Head's mortal wound was been healed, "all the World wondered after the Beast. And they bowed down to the Dragon which gave power to the Beast" ¾ by "receiving the statutes, ordinances, decrees, ceremonies and religion of the Roman Empire" (comments the Calvinistic Geneva Bible). John continues: "They bowed down to the Beast, saying: 'Who is like the Beast? Who is able to make war against him?"

Note that after the attention-demanding Islamic scourge had been stopped in France in A.D. 732 by Charles Martel, his son Pepin the Short had his own coronation approved by Pope Zacharias. In return ¾ Pepin forced the Lombards to surrender part of their territory in Italy to the Pope. This marks the beginning of the so-called "Papal States."

Indeed, that was to be followed by Pope Leo III's coronation of Pepin's son Charles as the Holy Roman Emperor Charlemagne in A.D. 800 ¾ in return for Charlemagne's recognition of the Pope as the ultimate Head of all temporal and political power. By the time of Charlemagne's death in A.D. 814 ¾ his 'Holy Roman Empire' embraced Northern Italy and Spain, France, Belgium, the Netherlands, and much of Germany and Austria. At that same time, the Byzantine or Eastern Roman Empire comprehended the Balkans, Asia Minor, and Southern Italy. And the Islamic Empire then stretched from India through to Northwest Africa and on into Southern Spain.

The so-called 'Holy Roman Empire' ¾ lasting from the time of the first clearly-recorded Pope (the 590-604 Gregory) in the seventh almost down to the sixteenth century and the Reformation ¾ was powerful. In conjunction with its papal teammate, "there was given to it a mouth speaking great things and blasphemies. And power was given to it to continue forty-two months" ¾ during which time the true saints would be persecuted.

This expression 'forty-two months' means 1260 day-years, and represents the time of Antichrist's power. Thus: Victorinus, Lactantius, Ribera, Bellarmin, Luther, Flaccius Illyricus, the Calvinistic Geneva Bible, Conrad, Nigrinus, Napier, Brightman, Downham, James the First, Mede, Tillinghast, Sherwin, Beverley, Poole, Cressener, Gerhard, Cramer, Pacard, Jurieu, Hoe, Matthew Henry, Bengel, Fleming, Daubuz, Whiston, Bishop Thomas Newton, Wesley, Horch, Bengel, Priestley, B.H. Carroll ¾ and many others, including even the Roman Catholic Douay Bible. During that time, the Sea-Beast "opened its mouth in blasphemy against God, to blaspheme His Name and His Tabernacle and those who dwell in Heaven."

Sixth. This Sea-Beast is political Rome ¾ and the continuation of the Fourth Beast in Daniel's vision. The Beast blasphemously demands political homage throughout the then-known World of the 'Holy Roman Empire' (sic). Yet the Beast has power for only 'forty-two months.' For, as the Calvinistic Geneva Bible rightly comments: "Antichrist's time and power, is limited."

Indeed, in spite of all his persecutions of the true saints (before they finally overcome him) ¾ the 'resurrected' Roman Beast is unable to conquer them. For, as the Calvinistic Geneva Bible once again comments, the Beast overcame these saints only "in their bodies, not in souls." Moreover, very far from the Beast being able to exterminate the Church ¾ the very gates of hell shall not prevail against the ongoingly-aggressive Church of the true saints of the Lord Jesus Christ.

Meantime, only the unsaved inhabitants of the then-known "Roman" World (as opposed to the entire Globe) bowed down to the Beast. He received homage only from those "whose names are not written from the foundation of the World in the book of life of the Lamb Who was slain." Even at the very zenith of the power of the revived Beast ¾ all the great multitudes of the elect of God, bought by the precious blood of Jesus, keep on standing loyal to their Lord and King.

So too should the elect of God even today. And so too shall they keep on standing ¾ even till the end of the World!

As Calvin remarks in his Adultero-German Interim: "Christ is called 'the Lamb slain from the foundation of the World' inasmuch as His blood cleansed the faults of all ages ¾ from the very commencement of the World." And as the Calvinistic Geneva Bible rightly comments: "Antichrist has no power over the elect."