Days of Vengeance - The Preterist Archive

19:3-8
of vengeance, in order that all things that are written
may be fulfilled” (Luke 21:22). Through Moses God
had warned of Israel’s future apostasy, when they would
make Him jealous by serving other gods (Deut. 32: 15-
22), bringing certain destruction upon themselves and
their land (Deut. 32:23-43). Four times in this passage
God threatens that His vengeance will overtake the
apostates: “Vengeance is mine, and retribution” (v. 35);
“I will render vengeance on My adversaries, and I will
repay those who hate Me” (v. 41); “Rejoice, O nations,
with His people; for He will avenge the blood of His
servants, and will render vengeance on His adversaries,
and will atone for His land and His people” (v. 43).
3 In the second division of the song, the great
multitude repeats the refrain: Hallelujah! The reason
for praise is, again, a godly rejoicing at the destruction
of the Church’s enemy, for her smoke rises up forever
and ever. As we have noted (see on 14:11; 18:2, 9), this
expression is based on the destruction of Sodom and
Gomorrah (Gen. 19:28), while the specific phraseology
is borrowed from Isaiah’s description of the punishment
of Edom (Isa. 34:10). It is used here to indicate the
permanent nature of Babylon’s fall. 2
4 The third section of the liturgy finds the twenty-four
elders and the four living creatures – representing the
Church and all the earthly creation (see on 4:4-11) –
taking up their distinctive part in the song. First, we are
told, they fell down and worshiped; again we notice
the importance of posture, of physical attitude, in our
religious activity. The modern Church’s affliction of
“spiritualistic” neoplatonism – not to mention simple
laziness – has resulted in her all-too-casual approach to
the Most High. At the very least, our physical position
in public, official worship should be one that
corresponds to the godly fear and reverence which is
appropriate in those who are admitted to an audience
with God who sits on the throne.
5 We are not told whose Voice pronounces the fourth
section of the liturgy from the Throne. It could be that
of one of the elders, leading the congregation from a
position close to the throne; but it is more likely to be
that of Jesus Christ (cf. 16:17), calling upon His
brethren (Rom. 8:29; Heb. 2:11-12) to praise our God
(cf. John 20:17, where Jesus says, “I ascend to My
Father and your Father, and My God and your God”).
That this is addressed to the Church as a whole is clear
from the description of the worshipers: His servants,
those who fear Him, the small and the great.
6-8 As the entire Church responds to the officiant’s
invitation, she speaks with the familiar Voice of the
Glory-Cloud (cf. Ex. 19:16; Ezek. 1:24), indicating her
full identification with the glorious Image of God: St.
John hears, 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. The Cloud has assumed the
Church into itself.
The first Hallelujah! of the “great multitude” had praised
God for His sovereignty, as shown in the judgment of
the great Harlot. The fourth Hallelujah!, in this fifth
and final portion of the liturgy, praises God again for
His sovereignty, this time as shown in the marriage of
the Lamb to His Bride. The destruction of the Harlot and
the marriage of the Lamb and the Bride – the divorce and
the wedding – are correlative events. The existence of
the Church as the congregation of the New Covenant
marks an entirely new epoch in the history of
redemption. God was not now merely taking Gentile
believers into the Old Covenant (as He had often done
under the Old Testament economy). Rather, He was
bringing in “the age to come” (Heb. 2:5; 6:5), the age
of fulfillment, during these Last Days. Pentecost was the
inception of a New Covenant. With the final divorce
and destruction of the unfaithful wife in A.D. 70, the
marriage of the Church to her Lord was firmly
established; the Eucharistic celebration of the Church
was fully revealed in its true nature as “the Marriage
Supper of the Lamb” (v. 9).
The multitude of the redeemed exults: His Bride has
made herself ready! The duty of the apostles during the
Last Days was to prepare the Church for her nuptials.
Paul wrote of Christ’s sacrifice as the redemption of the
Bride: He “loved the Church and gave Himself up for
her; that He might sanctify her, having cleansed her by
the washing of water with the Word; that He might
present to Himself the glorious Church, having no spot
or wrinkle or any such thing; but that she should be
holy and blameless” (Eph. 5:25-27). Paul extended this
imagery in speaking to the Corinthians about the goal
of his ministry: “I am jealous for you with a godly
jealousy; for I betrothed you to one Husband, that to
Christ I might present you as a pure virgin.”
Yet there was the danger that the Church would be
seduced into fornication with the Dragon; the Apostle
was “afraid, lest as the Serpent deceived Eve by his
craftiness, your minds should be led astray from the
simplicity and purity of devotion to Christ” (2 Cor.
11:2-3). As the crisis of those days was drawing to its
conclusion, when many were departing the faith and
following after various heresies, Jude penned a hurried
emergency message to the Church (see Jude 3), in
which he enjoined the Bride to remain faithful to her
Lord, committing her “to Him who is able to keep you
from stumbling, and to make you stand in the presence
of His glory blameless with great joy” (Jude 24).
But now St. John sees a vision of the Church in her
glory and purity, having successfully met her trials and
temptations, having passed through great tribulations
into her possession of the Kingdom as the Bride of
Christ. Contrary to the expectations of Rome, the
destruction of Jerusalem was not the end for the
Church. Instead, it was the Church’s full establishment
as the new Temple, the final declaration that God had
taken to Himself a new Bride, a faithful, chaste virgin
who had successfully resisted the seductive temptations
2. The phrase thus cannot be pressed into service as a literal description of the eternal state of the wicked in general. The actual flames that consumed “Babylon”
burned out long ago; but her punishment was eternal. She will never be resurrected.
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