Days of Vengeance - The Preterist Archive

APPENDIX A
make him a pillar in the Naos of my God, and the
statement about the triumphant martyrs, 7:15, They
serve him day and night in his Naos.
This thought of the new Naos from heaven was
superseded by something better, the vision of the New
City which has no Naos, and no day or night either.
Now we see why the death of the lamb had to come
first. It was the death of Christ that opened the way.
When thou hadst overcome the sharpness of death, thou
didst open the Kingdom of heaven to all believers.
Comparing St. John with the temple ritual, we now get:
Temple. Simultaneous. St. John.
Three trumpets.
Lamb killed.
Lamb killed.
Blood on altar.
Blood splashed on altar. Three trumpets.
Gates opened.
Gates opened.
The Incense Offering (Rev. 8:3-5)
Why, then, is the incense offering put in its wrong
place? There are one or two suggestions which can be
made on this point. The first is a literary point of some
importance. St. John is following out several complicated
systems in this book, and the logical order of
one sometimes has to give way to another. I have
shown how faithfully the order of Revelation follows the
book of Ezekiel; now this passage is based on a vision of
Ezekiel’s which comes at this point. If he remains true
to Ezekiel it must immediately succeed the vision of the
sealing.
Further, there was one day of the year when the offering
of incense did come earlier; and this day was the Day of
Atonement, the only day when the high priest was
bound to officiate in person. We shall find other reasons
for supposing that St. John has the Day of Atonement
in mind. We have had one already. The high priest
(Christ) has been shown to us in chapter 1 wearing a
white vestment, and the only day the high priest wore
white was the Day of Atonement.
If this suggestion is true, St. John has not confined
himself to the ceremonial of one type of sacrifice only.
His ceremonial is conflate. We may note that he could
not have used the Day of Atonement ceremonial only,
as he would then have had to have symbolised Christ
by a goat.
The ceremony described by St. John seems, to be based
on the daily ritual, as it is done by an angel, not by
Christ the high priest; but possibly this need not be
pressed, as the angel symbolises the whole process of
intercession. The half-hour’s silence which preceded
the incense offering corresponds to the silence and
prostration which followed it in the temple system. We
may note that in the daily ritual the Naos was entered
at this point, and the incense altar cleansed; the
heavenly Naos would not need this. On the other
hand, when we come to the point where the incense
offering took place in the daily ritual, we find that St.
John has a very significant passage corresponding to it.
To sum up. St. John desired at this spot to symbolise the
prayers of the innocent dead coming before God and
being answered. He therefore moves the incense
offering to this point, as on the Day of Atonement. He
thus preserves his parallelism with Ezekiel.
A long non-liturgical passage follows. The three
trumpets are made to symbolise the voice of prophecy
in its denunciation of sin. Lengthened to seven, they
recall the fall of the city of Jericho (8:6 to 9:21).
Then comes the completion and fulfillment of the
prophetic ministry in the Christian evangel, in
connection with which he relates his own call, and his
peculiar and distinctive work which is to prophesy
against Jerusalem. Jerusalem is to be destroyed; the
Naos only is to be preserved; and by the Naos we have
seen that he means the community of elect souls in
which the Presence of God is Tabernacling. The real
Israel is now the Christian church (10:1 to 11:13).
All this is concluded by the last trumpet and the
opening of the heavenly Naos (11:14-19).
The Great Interlude is also non-liturgical. It narrates
the appearance of the Deliverer, his victory over Satan,
the persecution of his followers in Jerusalem, and the
appearance of the beast (the Roman god-emperor system)
which persecutes his followers abroad (12 and 13).
2. The Preparation of the Sacrifice. – After the lamb
had been killed and its blood splashed on the altar
there was still much to be done. It had to be skinned
and cut into pieces; its entrails and legs were washed in
the laver; and it was laid out on the slope that led up to
the altar. The priests then went to the Hall of Polished
Stones for Prayers.
Chapter 14 opens with the lamb standing on the Mount
Sion, or rather the lamb of the Tamid on Mount Sion. As
Mount Sion is the site of the temple, I need not labour
the sacrificial aspect of this verse.
With him are the hundred and forty and four thousand
who were “sealed”; they have the name of his father
written on their foreheads. These are the martyrs, who,
together with the lamb, form the sacrifice. They are
also priests. The high priest carried on his forehead a
golden plate, the petalon, bearing the sacred name of
Jehovah, Holiness unto the Lord. In verse 4 they are
described as “firstfruits,” a definitely sacrificial term; and
in verse 5 they are said to be “without blemish”; a
perfect material for sacrifice.
I have dealt in the text with the statement in verse 4
that they were not defiled with women. The priests at
the sacrifice had to observe certain ceremonial taboos
which kept them technically “holy”; among these was
abstinence from intercourse with women.
Then follows the New Song, sung not in the Hall of
Polished Stone, but before the Throne; but I shall deal
with this later.
After the three woes which are non-liturgical, we find
the coming of one like a son of man upon a white
cloud, followed by the harvest and vintage of the land.
These are stongly liturgical in tone. Let us set it out
liturgically.
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