“And out of the throne proceed lightnings and thunders and voices; and Seven Lamps of Fire burning before the throne, which are the Seven Spirits of the Deity.”—Verse 5.
1. The Lightnings
The throne established in the heaven in its inauguration is a throne of judgment; so that when the throne is set, “the judgment is set and the books are opened”—Dan. vii. 10. This throne is “the Great White Throne” seen of John in ch. xx. 11. It is all conquering; for from before the face of him who is to sit upon it, he says, “the earth and the heaven fled away; and there was found no place for them.” In other words, the Fourth Beast dominion was destroyed; and the other three beasts had their dominion taken p. 31 away. At this crisis Daniel describes the throne as being a fiery flame, and the wheels, or hosts that obeyed its mandates, burning fire. He speaks of them as thousand thousands, and ten thousand times ten thousand. These he says, ministered to the King and stood before him; and in their going forth compares them to “a fiery stream issuing and coming forth from before him.” The Spirit in David says, “He makes his ministers a flaming fire;” and therefore in this scene of the apocalypse, they are symbolized by “lightnings” with their attendant “thunders and voices.” David also says, prophetically: “O Yahweh, bow thine heavens, and come down, touch the mountains, and they will smoke; flash forth lightning, and scatter them; send thine arrows, and discomfit them;” and the Spirit in Zechariah, foretelling the dissipation of the power of the sons of Greece at the advent, says: “I will render double unto thee, when I have bent Judah for me, filled the bow with Ephraim, and raised up thy sons, O Zion, against thy sons, O Greece, and made thee (Zion) as the sword of a Mighty Man. And Yahweh shall be seen over them, and his arrow (Ephraim) shall go forth as the lightning; and Yahweh Elohim shall blow the trumpet, and shall go with whirlwinds of the south”—ch. ix. 13. The teaching of this testimony is, that “in the day of the great slaughter when the towers fall,” there will be war between Israel and the rest of the world. That this war will have been kindled by the Messiah after his return. That he will be seen at the head of the armies of Israel, as their Commander, surrounded by the Sons of Zion, whom he will have raised up. He and they will be the captains of Israel, of whom Judah will be the bow, and Ephraim, or the Ten Tribes, his arrow. When this military organization is put into operation, and it goes forth for conquest in “the war of the great day of the Almighty Deity” (Rev. xvi. 14), it will issue forth as “a fiery stream” from the throne, burning with the fire of the King’s indignation; as lightnings flashing from the throne of David’s Lord and echoing their thunders and voices, from one end of earth to the other, until “the controversy of Zion” shall be settled beyond all cavil or dispute. “In that day I will make the Governors of Judah as a hearth of fire among the wood, and as a torch of fire in a sheaf; and they shall devour all the peoples round about on the right hand and on the left; and Jerusalem shall be inhabited again in her own place, in Jerusalem”—Zech. xii. 6. These “governors” are the saints in lightning operation against the dominions symbolized by the four beasts of Daniel.
p. 322. The Thunders
Lightning is what philosophy terms electricity in luminous excitation. Scripturally, it is the “free Spirit of the Deity.” Thunder is the sound produced by the electrical condensation of the constituents of the aerial. The free oxygen and hydrogen floating in the air are electrically combined, and thereby caused to occupy less space than before, and so giving out lightning, and forming a vacuum, into which the surrounding air rushes, causing a loud report, or thunder. Hence, it is an appropriate symbol for that operation by which the temporary constituents of the political aerial (and the things which are seen there are temporary) are condensed into one dominion under the glorious luminary of the New Heavens. Jesus named the sons of Zebedee “the Sons of Thunder.” These were James, and his brother John, to whom this vision of thunder was revealed. The agents in this throne-scene are all sons of thunder. They are the Spirit-incarnations condensing all things into one kingdom with the thundering tumult of war in ch. x. 3, symbolized by “the Seven Thunders,” whose utterances are “sealed up” till the storm-period which precedes “the day of rain” when the bow appears.
3. The Seven Lamps of Fire
The whole scene is a manifestation of Spirit in preparation for the reduction of the great mountain before Zerubbabel to the level of a plain. This is to be effected, not by ordinary military prowess or force, “but by my Spirit saith Yahweh Hosts”—Zech. iv. 6. He that sits upon the throne is spirit, those represented by the twenty-four elders will be spirit like him, and those symbolized by the four living ones will be spirit also; so that all that is manifested is an embodiment of spirit, and all effected by the manifested ones is done by the energy of Divine Power. This power is symbolized by the “Seven Lamps of Fire burning before the throne.” These are interpreted to signify “the Seven Spirits of the Deity:” not that there are seven distinct and independent spirits. We learn from Paul that there is but “One Spirit;” which one was represented to John by the symbol of perfection, “seven lamps of fire.” In ch. v. 6, these seven lamps are termed “seven horns and seven eyes.” The reason why the Spirit is symbolized by stationary lamps burning before the throne, as in ch. iv., is because it is connected with the throne in Zion as its fountain or reservoir—“all p. 33 my springs are in thee, Zion;” but, as “seven horns and seven eyes” upon a lamb, in locomotion (ch. xiv. 4) the one spirit is represented as “sent forth” from Zion, “unto all the earth.”
The lightnings, and thunders, and voices, then, are those of the one spirit in seven-fold perfection sent forth into all the earth for the subjugation of the world. The spirit, however, does not go forth as free, uncombined, or naked spirit, as seen in the lightning and heard in the thunder of the material expanse. But it goes forth incarnated in the saints—in the Lord Jesus and his brethren; who are symbolized by the One sitting upon the throne and the twenty-four elders, and the four living ones.
4. When the Seven Spirits go forth
The time when they begin to go forth into all the earth is, of course, subsequently to their resurrection. The sons of Zion are to be raised up against the sons of Greece, or the Gentiles. Being resurrected, they are in readiness to “follow the Lamb whithersoever he goeth”—ch. xiv. 4. “Blessed are the dead dying in the Lord, απαρτι, at this time.” The epoch has then arrived for the generations of the righteous, who have previously died in the Lord, to be blessed—to take possession of the kingdom, or dominion, having been prepared for them from the foundation of the κοσμος, or existing order of things; for all things are for their sakes—Mat. xxv. 34; 2 Cor. iv. 15. At that time, they are to “take possession of the kingdom, under the whole heaven,” “that they may take rest out of their labors; yea, saith the spirit, for he follows their works with them”—xiv. 13.
The time when the Lord’s dead ones are blessed, is when they have consummated the work symbolized by the sickles, which are set to work by the voices that proceed from the spirit throne with the lightnings and thunders. There are three voices. One announces their resurrection-blessedness; the second proclaims the harvesting of the earth, and the third the gathering the clusters of the earth’s vine—ch. xiv. 13, 15, 18. These voices belong to the Seventh Vial, which is the last period of the Seventh Trumpet, by which the Seventh Seal is consummated in all the events thereof. The wrath of the Deity is then exhausted, and peace reigns for the thousand years ensuing—ch. xv. 1. Until these lightnings, and thunders, and voices shall cease to proceed from the throne, “no man can enter into the temple”—verse 8. Hence, the exhibition of the twenty-four p. 34 priestly elders in the temple, is a scene that obtains, after “the war of the great day of the Almighty Deity” is over. The saints are then victors, and can give law and religion to the world. Hence, the Seventh Angel pours out his vial, into THE AIR; the result of which is that when it is emptied, “a great voice out of the temple of the heaven from the throne, says, “IT IS DONE.” But while it is pouring out by the saints who are engaged in taking the kingdom under the whole heaven, “there are voices, and thunders, and lightnings; and a great earthquake, such as was not since men were upon the earth, so mighty an earthquake and so great”—ch. xvi. 17. This will be the time of trouble Daniel speaks of in ch xii. 1, to result in the abolition of all human governments, and the establishment of the kingdom of the Deity.
5. The Translucent Sea
“Before the Throne a translucent sea, like to crystal.”—Verse 6.
In prophetic writing “Sea” is representative of nations. It is thus used in Ezek. xxvi. 3, where Yahweh Elohim addressing Tyre, says, “I am against thee, and will cause many nations to come up against thee, as the sea causeth his waves to come up.” Here the waves of the sea represent the military forces of the nations marching against any enemy. Also in Jer. li. 42, the forces of the Medes and Persians which captured Babylonia are styled the sea; as, “the sea is come up upon Babylon: she is covered with the multitude of the waves thereof: her cities are a desolation.”
Daniel’s four great beasts are represented as arising out of the Great Sea, or Mediterranean, as the result of the striving of the four winds upon it. These four beasts are systems of powers which arose out of conflicts of the nations inhabiting that portion of the earth the central sea of which is the Mediterranean. Hence, this sea became their representative in the prophecy. It is also so used in the Apocalypse into the symbols of which it has been transferred, and with them incorporated. The beast having seven heads and ten horns exhibited in ch. xiii. 1, is a combination of Daniel’s four, and therefore represented as “rising up out out of the sea,” which, of course, is the same sea.
The second trumpet was prepared to “blow upon the sea; and when it sounded the great Attila mountain burning with fire was cast into the sea; and the third part of the sea became blood; and the third part of the creatures which were in the sea, and had life, p. 35 died; and the third part of the ships were destroyed.”—Apoc. viii. 8. This was a representation of the judgments that were to fall upon the peoples of the Roman West occupying that third part of the great sea region and scourged by Attila and his Huns, as Mœsia, Thrace, Macedonia, Illyria, Lombardy, and so forth. But, until the Sealing Angel had done his work upon the servants of the Deity, the Angel of the second trumpet was commanded not to hurt the sea—ch. vii. 1, 3.
The rainbowed angel that descends from the heaven, is represented in ch. x. 2, 5, as planting his right foot upon the sea, and swearing that henceforth “there should be no delay in the finishing up of the mystery of the Deity as he had declared the good news,” or gospel of the kingdom, “to his servants the prophets.” This is the same sea; and the right foot of the angel resting upon it, indicates that it is to be subjected to the judgments of the Seven Thunders from the throne as well as the earth, or interior regions.
In chap. xii. 12, the sea is again introduced in the words, “Woe to the inhabitants of the earth and the sea! for the Devil is come down unto you, having great wrath, because he knoweth that he hath but a short time.” Here the sea is regarded as an inhabited region to which the Devil would pay a visit in wrath. In this text it represents those provincial regions of the Fourth Beast habitable in which the last struggle for power between the Catholic and Pagan factions was to ensue, subsequently to the expulsion of the “what withholdeth,” from the Roman Heaven, in the Constantinian epoch—2 Thess. ii. 6, 7.
In chap. xvi. 3, the second angel-power is exhibited as pouring out his vial upon the sea; “and it became as the blood of a dead man; and every living soul died in the sea.” Here is a sea of living souls in anything else than a translucent state like to crystal. It was opaque with human blood to excess, as symbolized by the death of all the souls it contained. The naval anti-revolutionary war, which commenced in 1793, and continued with brief intermissions till 1815, illustrates this judgment upon the sea. It is a sea of living souls noted for their wickedness; and hence it is that the Spirit speaking of them, says, “The wicked are like a troubled sea when it cannot rest, whose waters cast up mire and dirt. No peace for the wicked, saith my Elohim.”—Isai. lvii. 20.
This is the present condition of the Apocalyptic sea, representative of the nations of the four beasts of Daniel; the people of the interior, as of Germany, Hungary, Poland, Russia, and so forth, being represented by “the earth.” The sea-nations are more especially before, or in the presence of the throne; the earth-nations p. 36 being more remote. Nevertheless, the nations, or “inhabiters of the earth and sea,” are all of the same character, and in “the hour of judgment “equally obnoxious to the wrath of the Deity. They are both a dead and a troubled sea, and so charged with mire and dirt,” that nothing can make it transparent to the light of the divine glory, but the judgments of the Deity—the bolts of the seven thunders pealing from the throne: “when his judgments are in the earth, the inhabitants of the world will learn righteousness;” and “all nations shall come and worship before Yahweh; because his judgments are made manifest.”—Isai. xxvi. 9; Apoc. xv. 4.
This, then, is the purpose of the Deity upon the sea; to make it “like to crystal,” transparent with righteousness and truth. This is the mission of Yahweh’s servant when he comes in power to enlighten the earth with his glory. But this must be preceded by judgments upon the sea. The representation of this is found in Apoc. xv. 2, in which John says: “I saw as it were a translucent sea that had been mingled with fire (μεμιγμενην perf. part pass.).” But the fire had ceased to burn, and those who had gained the victory over the sea of nations, he also saw standing upon it, and with their harps celebrating their victory over the Papal and other dominions, and singing the song of Moses and the Lamb. The fire with which the sea will have been mingled is the wrath of the Deity contained in the Seven Thunders, or terrors of the Seventh Vial, to be hurled from the throne by Jesus and his Brethren, who constitute the Rainbowed Angel, “whose face is as the sun, and his feet as pillars of fire”—ch. x. 1.
When these judgments, which make the Deity “a consuming fire” (and “the Spirit follows with them,” the saints) when they shall have subsided, “the Mystery of the Deity will be finished.” The sea of nations will be no more lashed into fury and tempest for a thousand years. In the presence of David’s throne it will be tranquil; and its waters so translucent, that those who stand upon it, having calmed its tempests and quieted its waves, will see into its utmost depths. But though at rest for a thousand years, and the power of the Satan submerged in the abyss, the sea will again become tempestuous, and cast up mire and dirt. “In the flesh dwells no good thing,” and “it lusteth against the Spirit.” At the end of the Millennial Period it becomes impatient of restraint, and the nations rebel against the saints who will have ruled them with a rod of iron so long in righteousness and peace. As “the sand of the sea” they again try conclusions with the saints; and as before the saints subdue them with a crushing and final overthrow. The end of flesh p. 37 and blood upon the earth will have then arrived, and there will be “no more sea”—ch. xx. 8; xxi. 1. A full end will then be made of all nations—Jer. xxx. 11. The nations of the earth and sea will then be superseded by “THE ISRAEL OF GOD,” every individual of whom, of all orders and degrees, will be consubstantial with the Deity, and the occupant of this then glorious planet which shall never be removed.