Days of Vengeance - The Preterist Archive

15:8
We should be reminded in this context of the
purification offering, designed to atone for the
defilement of a place, so that God could continue to
dwell with His people (cf. comments on 9:13). If the
whole nation sinned, so that the entire Land was
defiled, the priests were required to perform special rites
of purification: The blood of the sacrifice was sprinkled
seven times toward the veil before the Holy of Holies,
then smeared on the four horns of the altar, and the
remainder poured out at the foot of the altar (Lev. 4:13-
21). 10 But in the outpoured plagues of the Chalicejudgments,
this is reversed, as Philip Carrington points
out: “This Blood, instead of bringing reconciliation,
brings rejection and vengeance. Instead of being
sprinkled seven times towards the veil, it is poured
seven times on the Land. Instead of the appearance of
the High Priest with the blood of reconciliation, we
have Seven Angels with the Blood of Vengeance.” 11
Why is the blood in Revelation no longer sprinkled
toward the veil? Because Jesus’ blood has already been
offered, and Israel has rejected it. As the writer to the
Hebrews warned just before the Holocaust: “If we go on
sinning wilfully after receiving the knowledge of the
truth, there no longer remains a sacrifice for sins, but a
certain terrifying expectation of judgment, and the fury
of a fire that will consume the adversaries. Anyone who
has set aside the Law of Moses dies without mercy on
the testimony of two or three witnesses. How much
severer punishment do you think he will deserve who
has trampled under foot the Son of God, and has
regarded as unclean the blood of the covenant by
which he was sanctified, and has insulted the Spirit of
grace? For we know Him who said: Vengeance is Mine,
I will repay! And again: The Lord will judge His
people! It is a terrifying thing to fall into the hands of
the living God” (Heb. 10:26-31).
That is precisely St. John’s point here: Blood and fire
are about to be poured out upon the Land of Israel from
the Seven Chalices, which are full of the wrath of
God, who lives forever and ever. Indeed, God’s eternal
nature (“As I live forever!”) was given in the Song of
Moses as a pledge of His vengeance against His
enemies, and those who shed the blood of His servants
(Deut. 32:40-43). Thus we are shown that the seven
angels with the plagues come from the Tabernacle of the
Testimony, bearing in their hands the curses of the
Covenant; they come from the Temple, the Church, as
ministers binding on earth the decrees of heaven
against those who have rejected the Testimony of Jesus;
and they come from the Throne of God Himself, having
received their Chalices of wrath from one of the
cherubs who carry God’s Throne (cf. 4:6).
8 At the dedication of both the Tabernacle of Moses
and the Temple of Solomon, the Sanctuary was filled
with smoke from the Glory of God and from His
power; and no one was able to enter (see Ex. 40:34-35;
1 Kings 8:10-11; 2 Chron. 5:11-14; 7:1-3). As we have
seen, this phenomenon happened in connection with
heavenly fire descending and consuming the sacrifices
(Lev. 9:23-24; 2 Chron. 7:1-3). The filling of the
Temple was thus both a sign of God’s gracious presence
with His people and an awesome revelation of His
terrible wrath against sinners, a warning that His fiery
judgment would be sent forth from the Temple against
those who rebelled against Him (for examples of this,
see Lev. 10:1-3; Num. 11:1-3; 16:35).
With the coming of the New Covenant, the Church of
Jesus Christ became the Temple of God. This new
redemptive event was signaled by the Spirit’s filling the
Church on the Day of Pentecost, as He had filled the
Tabernacle and the Temple. As St. Peter declared,
however, the Pentecostal outpouring would be
accompanied at the end of the age by a Holocaustal
outpouring as well: “Blood, and fire, and vapor of
smoke” (Acts 2: 16-21; cf. Joel 2:28-32). For the
Church to take full possession of her inheritance, for
her to assume her proper place as the New Covenant
Temple, the corrupt scaffold of the Old Covenant had
to be thrown down and demolished. The firstgeneration
Christians were continually exhorted to
look forward to the fast-approaching Day when their
adversaries would be consumed, and the Church
“synagogued” as the definitive Temple (cf. 2 Thess. 2:1;
Heb. 10:25). In the complete sense of New Covenant
fullness and “perfection” (cf. 1 Cor. 13:12), no one was
able to enter the Temple until the seven plagues of
the seven angels were finished in the destruction of
Old Covenant Israel.
E. W. Hengstenberg mentions a related aspect of this
symbol: “So long as Israel was the people of the Lord
the pillar of cloud exclaimed to all his enemies, ‘Touch
not Mine anointed, and do My prophets no harm.’ So
here; that the temple is full of smoke, and no one is able
to go into it, this is ‘a sign for believers, that the Lord
in love to them was now going to complete the
destruction of their enemies.’ 12 Besides, we see quite
plainly in Isaiah 6 the reason why none could enter in.
If God manifests Himself in the whole glory of His
nature, in the whole energy of His punitive
righteousness, the creature must feel itself penetrated
by a deep feeling of its nothingness – not merely the
sinful creature, as there in the case of Isaiah, but also
the finite, according to Job 4:18; 15:15. . . . Bengel 13
remarks, ‘When God pours out His fury, it is fit that
even those who stand well with Him should withdraw
for a little, and should restrain their inquiring looks. All
should stand back in profound reverence, till by and by
the sky become clear again.’” 14
9. Farrer, p. 174.
10. See Gordon J. Wenham, The Book of Leviticus (Grand Rapids: William B.
Eerdmans Publishing Co., 1979), pp. 86-103.
11. Philip Carrington, The Meaning of the Revelation (London: SPCK, 1931), p.
262.
12. C. F. J. Züllig, Die Offenbarung Johannis erklärt (Stuttgart, 1834-40).
13. J. A. Bengel, Erklärte Offenbarung Johannis (Stuttgart, 1740).
14. Hengstenberg, Vol. 2, p. 153.
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