Days of Vengeance - The Preterist Archive

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19:1-2 19 THE FEASTS OF THE KINGDOM The Marriage Supper of the Lamb (19:1-10) 1 After these things I heard, as it were, a loud voice of a great multitude in heaven, saying: Hallelujah! Salvation and power and glory belong to our God; 2 because His judgments are true and righteous; for He has judged the great Harlot who was corrupting the earth with her fornication, and He has avenged the blood of His servants at her hand! 3 And a second time they said: Hallelujah! Her smoke rises up forever and ever! 4 And the twenty-four elders and the four living creatures fell down and worshiped God who sits on the Throne saying: Amen! Hallelujah! 5 And a Voice came from the Throne, saying: Praise our God, all you His servants and those who serve Him, both the small and the great. 6 And I heard, as it were, the voice of a great multitude and as the sound of many waters and as the sound of mighty peals of thunder, saying: Hallelujah! For the Lord our God, the Almighty, reigns. 7 Let us rejoice and be glad and give the glory to Him, for the marriage of the Lamb has come, and His Bride has made herself ready. 8 And it was given to her to clothe herself in fine linen, bright and clean; for the fine linen is the righteous acts of the saints. 9 And he said to me, Write: Blessed are those who are invited to the marriage supper of the Lamb. And he said to me, These are the true words of God. 10 And I fell at his feet to worship him. And he said to me, Don’t do that! I am a fellow servant of yours and of your brethren who hold the Testimony of Jesus; worship God! For the Testimony of Jesus is the Spirit of prophecy. There are several similarities in language between this passage and that in 11:15-19, the announcement of the seventh angel’s theme of the completion of “the Mystery of God”: the opening of the Kingdom and the heavenly Temple to the whole world in the New Covenant. We can easily see the message of these verses as an expansion of that idea when we take note of the parallels: 11:15 – loud voices in heaven. 11:15, 17 – He will reign forever and ever. . . . Thou hast taken Thy great power and didst reign. 11:16 – The twenty-four elders . . . fell on their faces and worshiped God. 11:18 – The time came for the dead to be vindicated, and the time to give their reward to Thy servants the prophets and to the saints. 11:18 – Thy servants . . . those who fear Thy name, the small and the great. 11:19 – There were lightings, noises, thunderings . . . 19:1 – a loud voice of a great multitude in heaven. 19:1, 6 – Hallelujah! Salvation and power and glory belong to our God . . . Hallelujah! For the Lord our God, the Almighty, reigns. 19:4 – The twenty-four elders . . . fell down and worshiped God. 18:24-19:2 – In her was found the blood of prophets and of saints . . . His judgments are true and righteous; for . . . He has avenged the blood of His servants. 19:5 – All you His servants, you who fear Him, the small and the great. 19:6 – The voice of a great multitude and as the sound of many waters and as the sound of mighty peals of thunder . . . The appearance of the Bride, prepared for marriage, is thus equivalent to the opening of the Temple and the full establishment of the New Covenant. These same images are brought together again at the close of this series of visions, when the City of God descends from heaven, “made ready as a Bride adorned for her Husband; and I heard a loud voice from the Throne, saying: Behold, the Tabernacle of God is among men, and He shall dwell among them . . .” (21:2-3). The Church, the Bride of Christ and City of God, is the 186
19:1-2 New Covenant Temple – or, rather, “the Lord God, the Almighty, and the Lamb, are its Temple” (21:22). 1-2 God’s people had prayed for Jerusalem’s destruction (6:9-11). Now that their prayers have been answered, the great multitude of the redeemed breaks out into antiphonal praise, in obedience to the angelic command in 18:20: “Rejoice over her, O Heaven, and you saints and apostles and prophets, because God has judged your judgment against her!” We should note carefully what St. John is doing here. The Revelation is a prophecy, and therefore intended “for edification and exhortation and consolation” (1 Cor. 14:3): Its readers were commanded to “heed the things that are written in it” (Rev. 1:3). In revealing the heavenly Church’s imprecatory prayers against her enemies, St. John was instructing his brethren on earth to do the same; now, having revealed the certain destruction of the Harlot, he shows the Church of the first century what their duty must be when Jerusalem falls. They are not to mourn her passing, but to praise God for the execution of His vengeance upon her. God’s will is to be performed on earth as it is performed in heaven. In showing the pattern of heavenly worship, St. John reveals God’s will for earthly worship as well. The antiphonal liturgy is divided into five distinct parts. The number five is, as we have seen (cf. 9:5), connected with strength, especially in terms of military action. Appropriately, this five-part song is a “battlehymn,” based on Old Testament songs of triumph over the enemies of God and the Covenant. The heavenly multitude sings: Hallelujah! The only New Testament uses of this Hebrew expression (meaning Praise ye the LORD!) are in this passage, where it occurs four times, in praise for the divine reconquest of the earth. As Hengstenberg notes, “the preservation of the Hebrew word, as in the case also of Amen and Hosanna, serves like a visible finger-post to mark the internal connection between the Church of the New Testament and that of the Old.” 1 The word itself recalls the Old Testament Hallel-psalms (Ps. 113-118), songs of victory that were sung at the festivals of Passover and Tabernacles. These psalms celebrated the greatness of God, especially as revealed in the deliverance of His people from Egypt and their restoration to true worship; and they look forward to the day when all nations will praise the Lord. Except for minor allusions to a couple of Hallel-psalms in verses 5 and 7, St. John does not construct this liturgy on their pattern; rather, the use of Hallelujah! alone is enough to make the connection. The first Biblical occurence of the expression, however, is in Psalm 104:35, which strikingly parallels the juxtaposition of judgment and praise in Revelation: Let sinners be consumed from the earth, And let the wicked be no more. Bless the LORD, O my soul. Hallelujah! The destruction of apostate Jerusalem on behalf of Christ and His Church will be the demonstration that salvation and power and glory belong to our God – a phrase that recalls David’s exultation when the preparations for building the Temple had been completed: “Thine, O LORD, is the greatness and the power and the glory and the victory and the majesty, indeed everything that is in the heavens and the earth; Thine is the dominion, O LORD, and Thou dost exalt thyself as head over all” (1 Chron. 29:11; Christ also alluded to David’s text in the Lord’s Prayer, Matt. 6:13: “Thine is the Kingdom and the power and the glory forever and ever, Amen”). The song also quotes David’s celebration of the Law’s all-embracing authority in Psalm 19:9: “The judgments of the Lord are true and righteous altogether.” In the fulfillment of the Law’s curses on the apostate city, God’s new Israel takes up the chant, affirming that His judgments are true and righteous. Israel’s destruction is the showcase of God’s righteousness. God’s honor could not endure the blasphemy of His name occasioned by the rebellion of His people (Rom. 2:24). The proof that “His judgments are true and righteous” is precisely the fact that He has avenged Himself upon His own people, rejecting those who had been called by His name: for He has judged the Great Harlot who was corrupting the earth with her fornication, and He has avenged the blood of His servants at her hand! This establishes the connection between the Harlot and the “Jezebel” who was seeking to destroy the churches (see 2:20-24). Jezebel, the harlot queen (2 Kings 9:22), had drawn Israel from the worship of the true God into a cult of statism and idolatry (1 Kings 16:29-34). She had persecuted and murdered the prophets (1 Kings 18:4, 13), and raised up false witnesses to slander the righteous in court (1 Kings 21:1-16). Thus Jehu was ordained by God’s messenger to destroy the house of Ahab, “that I may avenge the blood of My servants the prophets, and the blood of all the servants of the LORD, at the hand of Jezebel” (2 Kings 9:7). Israel’s adulterous flirtations and dalliances with paganism are likened by the prophets to Jezebel’s “harlotries and witchcraft” (2 Kings 9:22): just as she “painted her eyes and adorned her head” in a futile attempt to ward off her destruction (2 Kings 9:30- 37), Israel vainly did the same: And you, O desolate one, what will you do? Although you dress in scarlet, Although you decorate yourself with ornaments of gold, Although you enlarge your eyes with paint, In vain you make yourself beautiful; Your lovers despise you; They seek your life. (Jer. 4:30; cf. Ezek. 23:40) Nothing short of repentance could have saved Jerusalem. This she adamantly refused to do, and so God took vengeance on her for her persecution of the righteous. Again it must be emphasized that Jesus specifically marked out Jerusalem as the object of God’s vengeful wrath. Speaking of the outpouring of covenantal curses which would culminate in the A.D. 70 destruction of Jerusalem, He said: “These are the days 1. E. W. Hengstenberg, The Revelation of St. John, two vols. (Cherry Hill, NJ: Mack Publishing Co., n.d.), vol. 2, p. 238. 187
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But when you see Jerusalem surround
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Copyright @ 1987 by Dominion Press
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FOREWORD Foreword Readers of the Bo
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PUBLISHER’S PREFACE Publisher’s
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PUBLISHER’S PREFACE case for esch
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PUBLISHER’S PREFACE this book bec
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PUBLISHER’S PREFACE In contrast,
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INTRODUCTION St. Irenaeus is somewh
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INTRODUCTION we must be saved” (A
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INTRODUCTION previous relationship
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INTRODUCTION You have lain down as
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INTRODUCTION are only elaborating a
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INTRODUCTION early churches had suc
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INTRODUCTION actions mean more than
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INTRODUCTION Some will complain tha
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INTRODUCTION Outline of Revelation
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1:1-3 that must shortly take place.
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1:4-6 accomplishment. We probably h
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1:7-8 observe that a central aspect
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1:9 14 And His head and His hair we
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1:16 That all the peoples, nations,
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1:20 things that must shortly take
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INTRODUCTION TO PART TWO Part Two H
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INTRODUCTION TO PART TWO The confli
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2:4-6 endure evil men. . . . And yo
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2:9-10 dead, and has come to life:
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2:14-16 expression (none of which m
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2:18-23 and leads my servants astra
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2:26-29 end, to him I will give aut
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3:4-6 church, or even against a nat
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3:8-11 And I will clothe him with y
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3:14-16 sons disinherited and cast
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3:21-22 the elders of a church, and
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INTRODUCTION TO PART THREE The laws
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4:2-3 numerous names and descriptio
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4:5-8 superseded and transcended; t
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4:5-8 19) led Biblical writers to s
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5:1-4 family worship; it is radical
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5:5-7 St. John; and it seems as if
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5:8-10 have gained the victory for
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6:1-2 6 IN THE PATH OF THE WHITE HO
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6:3-4 forth conquering, and to conq
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6:9-10 And authority was given to h
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6:15-17 that Israel’s time has ru
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7:4-8 Though he flourishes among th
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7:4-8 they were listening to the Ap
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7:9 is presumably deliberate, for i
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7:10-14 inheriting the Kingdom (Mat
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7:15-17 They will not hunger or thi
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8:3-5 for that would be about the l
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8:6-7 rout the Midianites, in Judge
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8:12 13 And I looked, and I heard a
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9:13 The vegetation of the earth is
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9:20-21 lations advanced by some co
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9:20-21 men much more atheistical t
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10:2-4 beyond reasonable doubt that
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10:8-10 the Spirit at Pentecost was
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11:1-2 angelic priest measures the
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11:7 have the power to shut up the
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11:11-14 climax with the murder of
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11:16-18 month in the liturgical ye
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12:1-2 12 THE HOLY WAR The Book of
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12:1-2 birth to the Christ, to brin
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12:4 Daniel repeats the same idea i
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12:5-9 Chronologically, this explan
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12:12 And when we see the Lord warr
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12:17 for the action of Pharaoh, wh
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Page 138 and 139: 13:8-10 The Beast was given authori
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Page 142 and 143: 13:18 work throughout Revelation ar
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Page 146 and 147: 14:1 14 THE KING ON MOUNT ZION St.
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Page 154 and 155: 14:19-20 And now, O inhabitants of
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Page 160 and 161: 15:8 We should be reminded in this
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Page 170 and 171: 17:1 17 THE FALSE BRIDE While some
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Page 230 and 231: CONCLUSION the pure Bride-City, is
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APPENDIX A make him a pillar in the
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APPENDIX A and wine the night befor
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APPENDIX A Babylon, falsely priestl
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APPENDIX A B. CHRISTIAN WORSHIP 1.
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APPENDIX B been the defining mark o
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APPENDIX B The Bible teaches us tha
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APPENDIX C APPENDIX C Common Grace,
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APPENDIX C for all eternity because
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APPENDIX C better arrangement cultu
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APPENDIX C be destroyed. The two ex
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APPENDIX C universe. It is governed
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APPENDIX C completed, the world was
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APPENDIX C deceive the nations. The
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APPENDIX C creeds and theological u
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APPENDIX C coherence that at least
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APPENDIX C There is continuity in l
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Athanasius. On the Incarnation of t
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________. The Institutes of Biblica
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