10. A Voice From the Heaven
“And I heard a voice from the heaven, saying to me, Write! Blessed the dead dying in the Lord from this time. Yea, saith the Spirit, in order that they may take rest from their labors; and their works he goeth in aid of with them.”—Ver. 13.
The principal emendation of this verse is the rendering of the word ἀκολουθε͂ι; akolouthei, which in the common version is incorrectly translated in the plural, as if “their works” were the nominative to the verb. The “Bible Union” Version, and all its “authorities,” have fallen into the same grammatical error. In their attempted exposition of the words “their works follow with them” they add, “as an attendant train; so speedy is their recognition and reward.” They then call Milton’s poetry to their aid, saying:
“Thy works and alms, and all thy good endeavor,\ Stay’d not behind, nor in the grave were trod,”
or as it originally stood in MS.:
“Straight followed thee the path that saints have trod\ But, as Faith pointed with her golden rod,\ Follow’d thee up to joy and bliss for ever.”
p. 424 This is the heathen fiction, poetically expressed, of “immortal souls” going up at corporeal death to joy and bliss; and their works and alms, and good endeavor, as an attendant train of witnesses, bespeaking for them a glorious welcome in the skies.
The Anglo-American Harlot in the United States, has omitted the words, “and their works do follow them,” in its service for the burial of the dead; and it makes the blessedness of these to consist in resting from their labors in the grave! This idea is expressed by the word “for” instead of “that”—Blessed are the dead; for they rest from their labors. Hence, as the grave was the horizon of their imagination, her bishops saw the impropriety of sending their “works and alms, and all their good endeavor” after them into the grave: they therefore cut the knot of difficulty by ignoring the words altogether!
The error in the translation is not for want of a grammatical knowledge of Greek; but because the translators when they render it correctly, can see no sense in it. In order, therefore, to make, what they regarded sense, they repudiated the grammar, and gave to the verb in the singular, a noun plural for its nominative: by which process they are enabled to transmute it, as by the philosopher’s stone, into “divinity” more sound and precious than the gold that perishes!
But, let us turn from this theological trickery, and examine the difficulty by the light of the original. This is faithfully rendered in the words at the head of this section, to the exposition of which we shall now proceed in the order it suggests.
John, who was contemplating the smoking torment, which had now reached the period of its extinction at the commencement of the aions of aions, commonly called “the Millennium”—“heard a voice from the heaven.” We must bear in mind this particular time in connection with its events, when he heard the voice; for the hearing of it at this crisis was indicative of the time when the subjects referred to in the voice shall be blessed and rest from their labors.
It was a voice from the heaven; and considering that it respects the blessed of the Father, it is doubtless the voice of the Son of Man, sitting upon the throne of his glory after he had punished the goats, and established the kingdom upon the ruin of theirs—“Then shall the King say to them on his right hand, Come, ye blessed of my Father, inherit the kingdom which has been prepared for you from the foundation of the State”—Matt. xxv. 34. When they do this, they rest from their judicial labors, and enjoy the blessing promised to the Saints.
John says, that this voice from the heaven was addressed to him— p. 425 “saying unto me.” This does not please “the recent editors,” nor the Bible Union annotators. They advise the omission. We would do better in rejecting the advice. For myself, I prefer to retain it; for John being by the voice told to write, and what to write, the voice said to him what he has written. And it was spoken to him as the representative of the “blessed”—of “them dying in the Lord;” for what is said to John is said also to his brethren in “the patience and faith of the Saints.” It was said to him, “Write!” He obeyed the command, and we have before us what he was told to write. “Blessed the dead dying in the Lord.” These words specify a particular class of dead ones—a class of people, who while living believed the gospel of the kingdom of God and the name of Jesus Christ; and having been immersed into the Lord, were “in the Lord;” and thenceforth continued to walk in him until death. When death overshadowed them, they fell asleep in Jesus, or “died in the Lord.” Hence, “the dead dying in the Lord” are the saints of all the ages and generations preceding the future advent of the Ancient of Days. The “justified by faith” before “the faith” came, are included among these—Luke xiii, 28. These are all “blessed” in inheriting the kingdom and glory to which they were called, or invited, by the gospel of their salvation.
But, when is Yahweh’s body of dead ones “blessed?” Is it, as “theologians” teach, when they are deposited in graves?—when the worm is feeding upon them, and they are seeing corruption? Is this the time of blessedness? It may be to the worshipers of the beast and his image, but certainly not to the Saints. John, dramatically contemporary with the end of the third angel’s mission, gives us a different reply. Referring to that crisis, he writes, απαρτι, aparti, “from now,” or “from this time.” It is the time indicated by Jesus in Matt. xvi. 27, saying, “The Son of Man shall come in the glory of his Father with his angels; and then (τοτε, that is, afterwards) he shall reward every man according to his works.” The time of blessedness is when the smoke has all cleared out of the temple; and the Saints have fully executed the judgment committed to them. The wrath of the Deity being all “filled up,” “all the families of the earth are blessed in Abraham and his Seed”—Gen. xii. 3; xxii. 18; Gal. iii. 8. “From this time,” the resurrected brethren of Jesus are blessed in the possession of the kingdom in abundant peace. The “war of the great day of God Almighty,” with all its lightnings and “Seven Thunders” proceeding from the throne (ch. iv. 5) will be hushed in millennial peace, when
p. 426 “No strife shall rage, nor hostile feuds\ Disturb those peaceful years;\ To ploughshares men shall beat their swords,\ To pruning-hooks their spears.\ No longer hosts encount’ring hosts,\ Shall crowds of slain deplore;\ They hang the trumpet in the hall,\ And practise war no more.”
“Yea, saith the Spirit.” These words are an endorsement of what “the voice from the heaven” said to John; as if the Spirit had said, “Yea; the First fruits unto the Deity and the Lamb, in whose mouth was found no guile, and who had died in the Lord in ages and generations passed, are ‘blessed from this time,’ when the Seventh Vial of wrath shall have been completely emptied, and the smoke of its judgments entirely cleared away.” But, why is the Spirit thus specially introduced in this place? In the first place, to inform the reader what will result to the saints in their blessedness at this time—“in order that they may take rest from their labors;” and in the second place, to explain to him how it comes to pass, that these who come forth from among the dead “in the nether parts of the earth,” where all are weak (Isai. xiv. 10) should prove so omnipotent in all their operations—“and their works He goeth in aid of with them.”
The saints are blessed at the time indicated, not simply because they rest, but to the end that they may take rest (ἵνα αναπαυσωνται) from their labors. They are blessed in the inscription of the Father’s Name upon their foreheads, by which they were “clothed upon by their house from heaven.” This makes the earthy bodies with which they emerged from the nether parts of the earth, incorruptible, immortal, almighty, and spiritual. They are blessed in the possession of this “New Name” or divine nature; and in having conferred upon them the honor and glory of “following the Lamb (or Spirit) whithersoever he goeth” in the evolution of all the works exhibited in this fourteenth chapter. They are thus “the blessed of the Father,” being like what Jesus is now, and as the angels (1 Jno. iii. 2; Luke xx. 36). They are thus made omnipotent, and like him, indued with “an energy whereby they are able to subdue all things.” They are blessed with these attributes of omnipotence, that they may be able to create the sabbatism, and to take rest in “the sabbatism, that remains for the people of the Deity”—Heb. iv. 9. This is the end set before them who are blessed; an end to the development of which vast and mighty “labors” will be required.
p. 427 The labors of the Saints are world-wide. Mankind have no conception of them. They are labors whereby “every island shall flee away, and the mountains shall not be found”—Apoc. xvi. 20. These are the islands and mountains of the political earth—the kingdoms and empires of the world. All these are to become the kingdoms of the Eternal Spirit, and of his Anointed Body consisting of Jesus and his Brethren—ch. xi. 15. Let the reader figure out for himself the work to be performed in rendering them powerless, and bringing them into absolute subjection to “the King of the Jews,” and he will be enabled to form a faint idea of “the works and labors of the Saints,” to be performed before they take rest in the kingdom of the Deity. These islands and mountains, of which Great Britain, Russia, France, and such like, are examples, are maintained in political existence by vast naval and military power and resources; and the Continental Powers are so constituted, that they can conscript “the last man” for conflict in “the last ditch,” before they will yield to temporal and spiritual annihilation. But the decree has gone forth, and is here apocalyptically recorded against them. They must succumb, and “wait for his law.” Their fleets must be surrendered, and their armies routed, slaughtered, and dispersed. Their hearts will be hardened like the heart of Pharoah. “Yahweh hath made all things for himself; yea, even the wicked for the Day of Evil”—Prov. xvi. 4. Hence, he hath made the Powers that be for the day of evil, as “vessels of wrath fitted to destruction,” in which he will make his power known—Rom. ix. 22. Their hardened hearts will cause them to stand and resist, till they are broken to shivers as the vessels of a potter—Apoc. ii. 27. It is Jesus and his Brethren who have the glory of giving them this terrific overthrow, in the execution of their judicial labors upon Babylon, and the world-wide worshipers of the beast and his image. To reduce these islands and mountains to a submarine level—to overflow them with an unruffled and glassy sea; to make them as “a plain before Zerubbabel,” and to develop “a great mountain thereon that shall fill the whole earth” (Dan. ii. 35), these are labors of the Saints, which will leave their mark upon the world for a thousand years; nor will they ever be forgotten, as long as the sun and moon shall shine upon the earth.
But their prowess is not exclusively of themselves. “The Son can do nothing of himself, but what he seeth the Father do; for what things soever he doeth, these also doeth the Son likewise;” “The Father that dwelleth in me, he doeth the works”—Jno. v. 19; xiv. 10. Upon this principle “their works” are performed likewise. The Saints can do nothing of themselves; for it is “not by might, p. 428 nor by power,” originating from men; “but by my Spirit, saith Yahweh Tz’vaoth.” The prowess of the saints is all attributable to the Spirit, which they will have become in being “justified by Spirit” after their appearance at “the tribunal of Christ”—“that which hath been born of spirit is spirit”—Jno. iii. 6. The antithesis in Zech. vi. 6, is between flesh and spirit. The “great mountain,” which before Zerubbabel is to “become a plain,” is the power of the old Adam, organized and concentrated in the powers represented in Nebuchadnezzar’s Image. This is to be broken to pieces, and scattered as chaff, “not by the might and power” of mortal men, however effectively armed and disciplined; but by the Spirit incorporate in the Saints; and energizing the armies of Israel under their command; so that five Israelites, as so many Samsons, may chase a hundred, and a hundred put ten thousand to flight—Lev. xxvi. 8.
In this exposition the reader will see in what sense it is said, “their works He goeth in aid of with them;” and he will also perceive, who it is that goeth in aid with them, and what noun likewise is the singular nominative to the verb ακολουθει, in the third person singular of the present indicative. The Spirit goeth with them in aid of their works. Without the Spirit they could do nothing; but aided by the Spirit, there is nothing too difficult for them to accomplish. The Spirit is their akolouthos or “attendant,” in whatever capacity the circumstances of the situation may require them to act. “He goeth with them,” ακολουθε͂ι μετ’ αυτων, so that, as Ezekiel saw in his visions of the Elohim, “whithersoever the Spirit was to go, they went” without being turned aside from the execution of their purpose—ch. i. 12, 20. Thus, it is not the works of piety and “supererogation” performed by “professors of religion,” and the charitable of no profession, which “follow them up to joy and bliss for ever,” and obtain for them “a speedy recognition and reward.” This is a vain conceit of the carnal mind, which, in all its thinkings, is at variance with the truth. Nor does it mean, that they who die in the Lord in the Millennium are blessed in an especial sense, as compared with those who die in the Lord in the times of the Gentiles. Such is not the fact. More blessed are they who die in the Lord during his absence from earth; for though their tribulations are greater while living, the glory and honor will be greater in the kingdom; when their postresurrectional labors, aided by the Spirit, shall have conquered for them therein, “the rest that remaineth for the people of God.”
p. 42911. The Reaping of the Earth’s Harvest
14. “And I looked, and behold a white cloud, and upon the cloud one sitting like to a Son of Man, having upon his head a golden stephan, and in his hand a sharp sickle. 15. “And another angel came out of the nave, vociferating with a loud voice to him sitting upon the cloud, Thrust in thy sickle, and reap, because for thee hath arrived the hour of the reaping; for the harvest of the earth hath been ripened. 16. And he that is sitting upon the cloud, cast his sickle upon the earth, and the earth was reaped.”
“And I looked,” saith John. Previous to this his ears, not his eyes, had been addressed. He had just been listening to the “voice from the heaven,” and the comment of the Spirit upon it. Having finished the writing of it in the book before him, he very naturally looked up, and thereupon perceived, that the scene had been changed. When he last wrote the words “I looked, and, behold,” he introduced us to a scene upon Mount Zion, where the Lamb with the 144,000 are seen standing. This is a Pentecostian scene, an exhibition of First fruit. But, before Pentecost, comes the Passover in its fulfillment in the kingdom of the Deity—Luke xxii. 15-18. We had not been informed whether the Lamb and the 144,000 had entered Zion without a conflict, or as the result of a great disaster inflicted upon the enemy. The reader will perceive a remarkable transition from the subject treated of in the latter half of the thirteenth chapter to that of the beginning of the fourteenth. They are altogether different and unconnected. The former treats of the Name of the Beast, and the manner of its establishment in the earth; the latter, of the Name of the Father, and what it effects after its apocalypse; but as to how it established itself in Zion, this fourteenth chapter has hitherto afforded us no information.
Before the Lamb can enter Zion with the 144,000, it will be necessary for him to expel the enemy. He comes to redeem Zion from the power of the foreigners, who have “come in like a flood,” and afflicted her with “desolation and destruction, and the famine, and the sword.” At this crisis of Zion’s history, coeval with “darkness covering the earth, and gross darkness the people,” Yahweh inquires through the prophet, “What have I here that my people is taken away for naught? They who rule over them make them to howl, saith Yahweh; and my Name continually every day is blasphemed.” “They have scattered Israel among the nations, and they have parted My land;” and “the king of the north hath planted the tents of his entrenched camp between the seas to the mountain of the glory of the Holy One”—Isai. lix. 19; lii. 5; Joel iii. 2; Dan. xi. 45.
Such are Zion’s relations, domestic and foreign, social, civil, and spiritual, at the crisis immediately preceding the appearance of the Lamb and his company within her walls. Being assembled in the p. 430 Valley of Jehoshaphat, and having laid successful siege to Jerusalem, they rifle its houses, ravish its women, and send half of its population into captivity, many of whom they sell to the Greeks for slaves at the vilest prices—Zech. xiv. 2; Joel iii. 3. This prostrates Jerusalem in the dust, and fastens bands around the neck of the captive daughter of Zion. The uncircumcised and the unclean, then in possession of Tyre and Zidon, and the coasts of Palestine, are in high feather over their success. This will be truly the day of Jacob’s trouble, in which there will be none to help, nor any to uphold—Isai. lxiii. 5; Jer. xxx. 7. But, Zion’s extremity is her Redeemer’s opportunity. “When,” saith Moses, “he seeth that their power is gone, He will repent himself for his servants;” and saith Joel, “He will then be jealous for his land, and pity his people, who shall no more be made a reproach among the nations”—ch. ii. 18, 19; Deut. xxxii. 36.
“The Harvest of the Earth,” according to Joel, and John’s angel that comes out of the nave, hath been ripened; “for their wickedness is great.” The harvest is composed of vast multitudes of ripened wickedness in the plain, or valley of judgment, unconciously awaiting a terrible overthrow. Joel in vision saw them all assembled there, as expressed in the words, “Multitudes, multitudes (hamonim, hamonim) in the valley of the judgment; for the Day of Yahweh is near in the valley of the judgment”—ch. iii. 14. These hamonim are the hamon-gog of Ezekiel xxxix. 11—the multitude of Gog, which is buried in the valley of the judgment executed; and gives name to an adjacent city, called Hamonah, that is, Multitude. This and the preceding chapter of Ezekiel are parallel with Joel iii, and John’s vision of the reaping. The prophet is indignant at their wickedness. He does not pray for their conversion, nor for their salvation; but for their sudden and complete overthrow, in the words, “Thither cause to come down with violence thy mighty ones, O Yahweh!” Nor will Joel’s prayer be in vain; for, referring to the same crisis, Zechariah says, “Yahweh Elohim shall come in, and all the Saints with thee”—ch. xiv. 5. This coming in to Jerusalem will be with violence, and a terrific outpouring of wrath upon the multitudes in arms. In the words of Ezek. xxxviii. 18, “Adonai Yahweh saith, my fury shall come up in my face: for in my jealousy and in the fire of my wrath have I spoken, surely in that day there shall be a great shaking in the land of Israel . . . and all the men that are upon the face of the land shall shake AT MY PRESENCE, and the mountains shall be thrown down, and the towers shall fall, and every wall shall fall to the ground. And I will call for a sword against Gog throughout all my mountains, saith Adonai Yahweh: every man’s sword shall be p. 431 against his brother. And I will plead against him with pestilence and with blood; and I will rain upon him and upon his bands and upon the many peoples that are with him, an overflowing rain, and great hailstones, fire and brimstone.” Thus, Yahweh goes forth and fights against these multitudes, as in the days of old—Zech. xiv. 3.
Such is the Harvest of the Earth, and its reaping. John looked, and beheld it in symbol. He saw “a white cloud”—a cloud of mighty ones habited in fine linen, white and clean, which represents the righteousness of them who are clothed with it—ch. xix. 8, 14. A cloud indicates multitude; and such a cloud, when looked upon in reference to its intrinsic excellence, would look white to the eye of faith. “All the Saints with Yahweh Elohim” are “Yahweh’s mighty ones,” numerically represented by 144,000; these are the white cloud, or Cherub, upon which the Spirit rides (Ps. xviii. 10); or, in the language of the Apocalypse, “upon which one like to a Son of Man is sitting.” Here the Spirit sits upon the white cloud; while, in ch. x., he is “clothed with a cloud.” This tenth chapter is introductory to the fourteenth. The Ancient of days must descend from heaven before he can be “clothed with a cloud,” or ride upon a cloud, of Saints, now sleeping in the dust. Hence, the scene beheld represents events subsequent to the descent of Christ Jesus, and the resurrection and immortalization of the 144,000; and before they obtain possession of the Holy City. This is the epoch of the vision; and synchronizes with the concluding period of the Sixth Vial, and coéval with the gathering of the kings of the earth and their armies “into the place called in the Hebrew tongue Armageddon”—ch. xvi. 16.
The “one like the Son of Man” sits upon the cloud, “having upon his head a golden stephanos,” rendered crown, but not a diadem. This indicates that he is the Generalissimo of the cloud of mighty ones; but not yet in possession of David’s diadem, removed from David’s house, when Zedekiah, the profane, wicked prince of Israel, was abased by Nebuchadnezzar—Ezek. xxi. 26. The stephan indicates that he is going to compete for a prize, which he has not as yet acquired. If he had been seen with a diadem upon his head, it would have implied that he was the ruling monarch of one kingdom at least; or that such was his destiny. On the contrary, the scene before us exhibits him in the outset of his military career, whose course will be that of a strong man to run and win a race—Ps. xix. 5. The prize set before him is, not one, but διαδηματα πολλα, many diadems—ch. xix. 12: and these he acquires by “the energy whereby he is able to subdue all things to himself.” He transfers p. 432 the diadem from the ten horns to his own head, when their kingdoms have become his by right of conquest. He is then seen sitting no longer on a cloud, but “upon a throne set in the heaven,” the throne of his father David, which Yahweh Elohim hath given him—ch. iv. 2; Luke i. 31-33.
The sharp sickle in his hand is symbolical of his power to reap down the multitudes which have assembled on the valley or plain of their destruction. The sword called for throughout the mountains of Israel, their mutual slaughter, the pestilence, overflowing rain of hailstones, fire, and brimstone, the panic and blindness of the horses, and the madness of their riders (Zech. xii. 4; xiv. 12-15)—all illustrate the sharp sickle cast upon the earth for its reaping at the appointed hour.
“And the earth was reaped”—the “Little Horn of the Goat; the King of Fierce Countenance is broken without hand; the Image of Nebuchadnezzar is smitten by the stone; the Gog Multitude is prostrate upon the mountains of Israel; the King of the North hath come to his end without anyone to help him; and Judah is delivered from the Assyrian by the Bethlehem born Ruler of Israel, whose goings forth are from of old, from everlasting—Mic. v. 2-7; Dan. xi. 45: viii. 9, 23, 25; ii. 34. This confederacy against the East is shivered to pieces as a potter’s vessel, and Jerusalem is delivered. From henceforth she will be no more trodden under foot of the Gentiles; nor will the uncircumcised and unclean be permitted to enter. Zion hath now put on her strength; and Jerusalem her beautiful garments. She is no longer rebellious against her King, but blesses him as her Redeemer who hath come in the name of Yahweh. She had thrown open wide her gates, that the King of Glory, Yahweh Tz’vaoth, strong and mighty in battle, might enter in. Standing with his feet upon the Mount of Olives, he beholds the Passover fulfilled in the kingdom—the Assyrian is slain, Zion is redeemed, and the Lamb with the 144,000 stand upon her holy mount: “Henceforth Jerusalem shall be holy, and no strangers shall pass through her any more”—Joel iii. 17.
12. The Vintage of the Earth
17. “And another angel came out from the Nave, which is in the heaven, he having also a sharp sickle. 18. And another angel came out from the Altar, having power over the fire, and he shouted with a great outcry to him having the sharp sickle, saying, Thrust in thy sharp sickle, and cut off the clusters of the earth, for her grapes are fully ripe. 19. “And the angel cast his sickle into the earth, and cut off the vine of the earth, and cast it into the great winepress of the wrath of the Deity. 20. “And the winepress was trodden without the city, and blood came out from the winepress unto the bridles of the horses for a thousand six hundred furlongs.”
“And another angel came out of the Nave.” This is the same p. 433 form of expression as in the fifteenth verse. The word “another” in verse 15 implies that the one sitting upon the cloud was an angel, or Messenger-Power, also. The angel of the seventeenth verse is, doubtless, identical with the symbolic Son of Man. This is to be inferred from the fact, that they both have possession, or command, of a sharp sickle. The power of the sickle is vested in the Commander-in-Chief, who executes, through his officers and brigades, the behests of the Supreme Power. In verse 17, the holder of the sickle is styled an angel; and “another” in relation to the one on the cloud, who reaps the harvest, because the situation of the sickling executive is changed.
Thus the symbolic Son of Man, “whose voice is as the sound of many waters”(ch. i. 13-16), sickled the harvest for the purpose of “opening a door,” through which the mighty ones of the Spirit, the Elohim of Israel, might enter in the heaven, and set up a throne therein—ch. iv, 12. In this work, or labor, they succeeded gloriously. They opened a door, entered amid the acclamations of the people, planted themselves on Mount Zion, and established the throne of the Deity, before and around which they circle in faultless myriads—ch. xiv. 1, 5. But, the other angel that sickles the vine of the earth comes out of the Nave “which is in the heaven.” The angel power of the harvest and vintage belongs to the Nave, or temple, in most holy manifestation; but between the advent and the harvest, it is the Nave “which is not in the heaven;” while after the harvest and before the vintage it is “the Nave which is in the heaven,” or “Air,” where it will continue evermore.
The reaping of the harvest of the earth, which puts the saints in possession of “the City of the Great King,” is only the beginning of national judgment. It is the smiting of the Babylonian Image upon its Russo-Gogian clayey feet by the stone-power. This shatters its homogeneity as a political organization under one imperial ruler. But though the continuity of its political elements is broken, the dynasties represented by the gold and the silver, the brass, the iron and the clay, of the image, do still exist; so that the work remaining for the mighty ones of the Spirit is that of reducing the broken fragments of the image to the condition represented by the chaff of the summer threshing floors, which the wind carries away into nonentity—Dan. ii. 35. This is the work of the vintage in its simplest illustration.
The harvest and the vintage of the earth are still further distinguished in Daniel’s vision of the Four Beasts of the Great Sea, in ch. vii. First, there is the slaying of the Fourth Beast; a process, the beginning of which is the harvest; then, there is the destroying of p. 434 his body in the burning flame; and the taking away of the dominion of the other three beasts; which consummates “the judgment written,” and constitutes the Vintage of the Earth, which the angel Son of Man with the sharp sickle is to gather and to tread without the city.
But, before this angel issues forth from the heaven, the proclamation of the aionian gospel is made through midheaven—verse 7. It announces, that “the Hour of the Judgment,” or the time of the treading of the winepress by the angel is come. When these causes and its result are manifested, it is found that the political organization symbolized by “the Beast and the False Prophet,” “the King, of the Earth,’ and “the Ten Horns,” making in the aggregate the Powers within and “without” the great city Babylon—refuse to comply with the demands; in evidence of which, “the Beast and the kings of the earth and their armies, gather together to make war with the Lamb and them that are with him”—ch. xix. 19; xvii. 14.
Affairs having arrived at this crisis, the Deity determines to exercise forbearance no longer. This decision is evinced by another angel coming out of the temple from the altar, having power over fire—verse 18. The angel is said to come out “from the altar.” He issues thence as the avenger of those whose blood had been poured out beneath it. Hence, the altar is symbolical of the apostles, prophets, and saints, and of all slain upon the earth, for the witness of Jesus, and the word of the Deity—ch. xvii. 6; xviii. 20, 24; vi. 9, 10; xx. 4. All of these, accepted at the tribunal, are constituents of the avenging minister. They live again; and judgment being given unto them, they have “power over fire”—over that fire with which Babylon is utterly burned (ch. xviii. 8); that, into which the Beast and the False Prophet are cast alive—xix. 20; that, with which the worshipers of the beast and his image are tormented—xiv. 10; that, which is mingled with the crystal sea; and that, the smoke of which ascendeth to the end of the “sixteen hundred furlongs.” This is the “fire,” or “wrath of the Deity poured out unmixed in the cup of his indignation,” at their command. Their tribulations, sufferings, and down-treading, have continued and accumulated for ages and generations; so that the cry for vengeance in the day when the Deity avenges his elect, is truthfully represented as the shout of a great outcry. The cry of Abel’s blood, though faint as that of one man, was loud enough to reach the ear of Deity; hence the loudness of the cry proceeding from the angel of the altar, is not because the avenger is hard of hearing, but symbolical of the multitudes to be avenged—“a great multitude which no man can number;” “a great cloud of witnesses,” of whom the world is not worthy—ch. vii. 9; Heb. xii. 1; xi. 38. p. 435 But the Angelhood of the Altar, though possessing power over the fire, does not apply it to judicial purposes of its own accord. It appeals to the Angel of the Sickle, the Head of which is Christ the Lord. He being the Commander-in-Chief, all things await his mandate. Hence, the loud outcry must be understood, not as a command, but as an entreaty, that he would now “thrust in his sharp sickle, and gather the clusters of the vine of the earth.” Remembering their former sufferings in the flesh, which they endured without retaliation; and seeing that the day of vengeance has come, and that they are now in power, they long to begin the work of vindicating the truth, which cost many of them their lives, by overthrowing Babylon, destroying the beast, and grinding to powder the broken fragments of the image, so that these evil and accursed powers being abolished, they may enter upon “the rest that remaineth for the people of God,” in which there is abundant peace so long as the sun and moon endure.
“The Vine of the Earth” is a phrase representative of the civil, military, and ecclesiastical, constitution of what is called “Christendom.” The grapes of this vine are the nations clustered together into empires and kingdoms upon it. To gather the clusters of the vine is to cause the armies of the nations to assemble together for war, so that they may be cut off and trodden down. Wherever the trampling of them occurs, there is the winepress into which they are cast—“the great winepress of the wrath of the Deity.”
The great outcry shouted forth by the Angel of the Altar is promptly responded to by the Angel of the Sickle, who puts his forces into motion against the enemy. The sickle he handles in the sanguinary vintage of the earth, is “the Remnant of Jacob” who are then “among the Gentiles in the midst of many peoples as a lion among the beasts of the forest, as a young lion among the flocks of sheep; who, if he go through, both treadeth down, and teareth in pieces, and none can deliver. And I will execute vengeance in anger and fury upon the nations, such as they have not heard”—Mic. v. 8, 15. Such is the instrumentality of the Spirit in the down-treading of the winepress. Judah and Israel in their dispersion are handled by the King of the Jews as his sword, bow, arrow, battle-axe, sickle, fan, and so forth. “Behold,” saith the Spirit, in Isaiah xli., 15, “I will make thee a new sharp threshing instrument having teeth; thou, worm Jacob, shalt thresh the mountains (empires), and beat them small, and shalt make the hills (lesser states) as chaff. And thou shalt fan them, and the wind shall carry them away, and the whirlwind shall scatter them; and thou shalt rejoice in Yahweh, and shalt glory in the Holy One of Israel.” This has never come to p. 436 pass since it was written. It will, however, assuredly be fulfilled, when He who hath been raised up “shall come upon princes as upon mortar, and as the potter treadeth clay”—ver. 25. And in Ps. xliv., they say, “Thou art He, Q Elohim, my King: command thou deliverances for Jacob. Through thee will we push down our enemies: through thy Name will we tread them under that rise up against us.” Then “the righteous shall rejoice when he seeth the vengeance: he shall wash his feet in the blood of the wicked: so that a man shall say, Verily, there is a reward for the righteous: verily there is Elohim judging the earth”—Ps. lviii. 10, 11. Jesus and his Brethren in command of the twelve tribes of Israel, are the Sickle of the Spirit by which he cuts off the vine of the earth, and treads its clusters in the great winepress of divine wrath. Behold them all in battle array in chap. xix. 11-16! There is the Faithful and True One, the Commander of the forces, who makes war in righteousness; His brethren in arms, who are “the called, and chosen and faithful;” and their hosts, the horses they ride, and the sharp sword of their warfare. These constitute the instrumentality symbolized in ch. xiv. by the Angel of the Sickle who treads the winepress. This is evident from the fact that his mission is the same as theirs, which the reader may see by comparing verse 19 of this chapter with verse 15 of the former, where it is written “He treadeth the winepress of the fierceness of Almighty God.” Thus, those who “go forth, and grow up as calves of the stall, tread down the wicked: for they shall be ashes under the soles of their feet in the day that I shall do, saith Yahweh Tz’vaoth.”
13. The Bridles of the Horses
The winepress of Divine wrath is trodden “without the City.” That is, the fearful judgments to be manifested will not be confined to the Ten-Streeted Babylon, which is geographically bounded by the Rhine, the Danube, and the Euphrates, the English Channel, and the Atlantic. There are extensive regions beyond, or “without,” these limits, equally obnoxious to the “fierceness and wrath of Almighty God.” “Without the City” there is Germany, in its largest sense, styled by Ezekiel “Magog,” upon which, saith Adonai Yahweh, “I will send a fire.” This Magog, or land of Gog, will include Prussia, Holland, Denmark, Sweden, Norway, Russia, and Poland. “Without the City” also are “them that dwell carelessly in the isles,” among whom the fire is to be sent also. These isles will include the dominions of Great Britain, that may not obey the proclamation in midheaven, commanding obedience to the King of Israel.” p. 437 “Without the City” also there are Canada and its sister provinces, the United States, Mexico, all South America, the Chinese Empire, Central Asia, Persia, Arabia, Abyssinia, and Egypt. All these countries, which include what Daniel styles, “the Rest of the Beasts,” in ch. vii. 12, the Lion, the Bear, and the Leopard, are all to be visited with “the fierceness and wrath of Almighty God;” which results in “taking away their dominion,” though not in extinguishing their political existence, which continues “for a season and a time,” or 1000 years. All these are “cast into the great winepress of the wrath of God,” when, having destroyed the Great City of Ten Kingdoms, in its threefold dominion of the Seventh Vial, they are trodden in the judgments of the winepress “without the City.”
The reader may easily conceive what an immense shedding of blood is implied by such a vintage as this. It is “the supper of the great God” prepared for the fowls of the heaven, who fill themselves with “the flesh of horses, and of them that sit upon them.” The phrase “oceans of blood,” as expressive of the quantity shed in these extensive warlike operations of the Saints, or Angel of the Sickle, would hardly be an exaggeration. The blood which flows from the down-trodden armies of the nations, is represented as ascending to “the bridles of the horses for a thousand six hundred furlongs.” This taken literally, would be about five feet deep, and two hundred miles long; but how broad we are left to imagine. But, as the literal is only symbolical of the real in this most ingeniously-devised prophecy, we need only inquire, what is signified by the phrase “came out of the winepress even unto the bridles of their horses.” The winepress judgments being identical with “the Supper of the Great God,” which consummates the binding of the Dragon in the abyss, the terms of the one are expletive of the terms of the other. Hence, the more concise phrase, “the bridles of the horses,” is interpreted by the words in ch. xix. 18, “the flesh of horses, and of them that sit on them”—of them that hold the bridle. Thus the word bridle comes to represent the rider of the horse. Blood does not flow from the horses only; but the fierceness of the wrath falls also upon the bridle-men, or “bridles,” who govern and manœuvre them in battle; it comes even unto them.
The armies within and “without the city” have large cavalry contingents, in which the kings and mighty of the nations pride themselves greatly. The governments, however, “without the city” can bring more cavalry into the field than those within it. In the constitution of the Asiatic armies it so preponderates as to be a characteristic. This is illustrated in ch. ix. 16. But “a horse is a vain thing for safety; neither shall he deliver any by his great strength” p. 438 —Ps. xxxiii. 17. This will be found to be true in the time of this terrible vintage. When Judah and Israel, as the Angel’s Sickle, shall tread down their enemies in the mire of the streets in the battle, because Yahweh is with them, the riders on horses, the bridles, shall be ashamed—Zech. x. 5. “In that day, saith Yahweh, I will smite every horse with terror, and his rider with madness, . . and every horse of the peoples with blindness”—xii. 4. “With thee, O Israel, I will break in pieces the horse and his rider”—Jer. li. 21: and the horses and their riders shall come down, every one by the sword of his brother—Hagg. ii. 22. What a terrible visitation will this be upon a cavalry force—the horses all terror-stricken, and therefore wild and utterly unmanageable; rushing against and kicking each other in fury and blindness! This alone would be fearful; but the horror is increased by the multitude of mounted and dismounted bridlemen in the melée, being all smitten with madness; so that “the bridles of the horses” are useless in their hands. In this way, the fierceness and wrath of the Deity comes out even to the bridles of the horses. What is not consummated by this mutually destructive mass of infuriate flesh, Israel will be on hand to finish. As the fowls of the heaven, they will devour them; and their sword will be filled with their flesh.
14. Sixteen Hundred Furlongs
This “thousand six hundred furlongs” is a great apocalyptic puzzle. Is it a measure of territorial surface, a measure of length without breadth and depth; or is it such a measure of length, representative of a measure of time? It cannot be taken in the sense of territorial measurement, because this would require a continuous line of cavalry two hundred miles long; and whether in single file, or broadly massed, cannot be told. Such an exposition would not be reasonable; nor is there anything in the prophets to justify it. The winepress is not a locality sixteen hundred furlongs in length; but the aggregate of the wrath of the Deity, affecting all the nations “without the city.” Wherever there is a nation, kingdom, or republic, beyond the limits of “the Great Babylon,” to be trodden down, there is the winepress, though it may be ten thousand furlongs from Jerusalem.
The question, then, in relation to the treading of the winepress is not where, but how long? How long is the smoke of the torment “from the glory of the Deity, and from his power” to ascend? In the eleventh verse, the answer is εις αιωνας αιωνων, unto œons of œons. This reminds one, that “it is the glory of the Deity to conceal p. 439 a thing; but the honor of kings is to search out a matter.” This answer, it is true, reveals the how long. It is to continue till the commencement of “the Economy of the fullness of the times,” commonly styled the Millennium: but still the question remains to be solved, How long from the reaping of the harvest of the earth by the Son of Man upon the white cloud, which puts the saints in possession of Mount Zion, and the end of the judgments when the Millennial Economy begins? The answer before us is “a thousand six hundred furlongs” off; that is, a time of this length is the square of the time to be occupied in the execution of the judgment given, or committed, to the saints.
This principle of the square, traditionally incorporated in Masonry, is a specialty of revelation, from the Aaronic breastplate of judgment, to “the city that lieth foursquare.” The measure of its wall, which is 144 cubits is the square of 12, obtained by multiplying 12 by itself —12 × 12 = 144. The like treatment applied to the sixteen hundred furlongs will show that they are the square of forty. Thus, the division of 1600 without a remainder gives 40; and 40 multiplied by 40 gives 1600—40 × 40 = 1600. Here, then, is the answer in figures. The treading of the winepress by the saints in command of the armies of Israel will continue by the space of forty years, at the end of which will be reached the fulfillment of the Jubilee in the kingdom of the Deity, when every Israelite shall return to his possession and to his family—Lev. xxv. 9, 10.
This forty years is the period of Israel’s Second Exodus, in which “it shall come to pass that the Adon (Lord) shall add his hand to redeem a second time the remnant of his people which shall be left, from Assyria, and from Egypt, and from Pathros, and from Cush, and from Elam, and from Shinar, and from Hamath, and from the islands of the sea. They shall fly (as a bird of prey) upon the shoulders of the Philistines toward the west; and they shall spoil them of the east (“without the city”) together; they shall lay their hand upon Edom and Moab; and the children of Ammon shall obey them. And there shall be a highway for the remnant of his people which shall be left, from Assyria; like as it was to Israel in the day that he came up out of the land of Egypt”—Isai. xi. 11, 14, 16.
It is clear from this testimony, that the restoration of the twelve tribes of Israel in our future is to be after the example of their ancient migration from Egypt under Moses; when “Yahweh led them through the deep, as a horse in the wilderness, to make himself an everlasting and a glorious name—Isai. lxiii. 12-14. Ezekiel testifies to the same thing, and cites the Exodus from Egypt, as the similitude of the manner of their deliverance from the long dispersion of the p. 440 past. “As I live, saith Adonai Yahweh, I will bring you into the wilderness of the peoples, and there will I plead with you face to face. Like as I pleaded with your fathers in the wilderness of the land of Egypt, so will I plead with you, saith Adonai Yahweh”—chapter xx. 33-36.
But, do the prophets testify to the how long, as well as to the manner, of Israel’s second exodus, or returning from the lands of their enemies to their own possession? Let us see. The spirit of Christ in Micah caused him to place on record in ch. vii. 14, the supplication following: “Feed thy people with thy rod, the flock of thine heritage, which dwell solitarily in the wood (or forest of nations), in the midst of Carmel; let them feed in Bashan and Gilead, as in the days of old. This is a petition praying, in effect, for the restoration of the kingdom to Israel; for their return from their present long dispersion in “the land of the enemy;” for their re-establishment as a powerful and independent nation in the holy land; for the subjugation of all kingdoms and nations to the laws and ordinances of their king. To perform this great work will require considerable time, and a great manifestation of almighty power. It consumed forty years of days “in the days of old,” or “a thousand six hundred furlongs” of time, from the institution of the Passover in Egypt to its celebration in the Valley of Achor under Joshua; which was its typical fulfillment in the kingdom of God—Josh. v. 6, 10. These were “the days of the coming out of the land of Egypt” into the land of Canaan; in which Yahweh fed his people with the rod, and purged out the rebels among them, whose carcasses fell in the wilderness—the days of the coming out, in which He made use of the twelve tribes as his soldiery in his wars against the Amalekites, Amorites, and so forth, as recorded in the earliest records of the nation.
Understanding these things, the reader will perceive the meaning of the words of the oracle delivered to the prophet in answer to his petition. The Eternal Spirit replied, saying to him as the petitioner for Israel, “According to the days of thy coming out of the land of Egypt will I show unto him marvellous things.” That is, as the coming out of Egypt consumed forty years; so, in causing Israel to feed in Bashan and Gilead, I will consume forty years in the marvellous works whereby it shall be effected. Thus it is that Micah testifies to the length of the period apocalyptically represented by the sixteen hundred furlongs. These are the square of forty; and this is the number of years during which the saints will be executing the judgment written, as symbolized, not only in this fourteenth chapter, but also in the sixteenth, from the seventeenth verse to the end; in the whole of the eighteenth and nineteenth, and the twentieth to the p. 441 fourth verse inclusive. These forty years are included in Daniel’s “Time of the End,” which is the period of transformation and transition, styled by Jesus “the Regeneration” (Mat. xix. 28;) and by Peter, “the times of the Restitution of all things, which the Deity hath spoken by the mouth of all his holy prophets απ’ αιωνος, from the aion;” or beginning of the course of things instituted through Moses—Acts iii. 21. In these forty years the present constitution of the world is abolished. At the end of them there will be no armies and navies. These destructive agents will cease to exist. The vintage will have cut them off, and disbanded them as useless and demoralizing incumbrances upon society. War will be studied no more; and a general disarmament, which is now impossible, will be enforced by the all-conquering “King of the Jews,” then become “the Light of the Gentiles, and the salvation of the Father to the ends of the earth”—Isai. xlix. 6. Babylon will have fallen with its Papacy, and all the powers, temporal and spiritual, which now sustain it. They will all have “licked the dust like a serpent;” and the Deity will have performed the truth to Jacob and the mercy to Abraham, which he swore to the fathers from the days of old—Mic. vii. 20.