Days of Vengeance - The Preterist Archive

APPENDIX A
from the Glory of God and his Power. As in the story of
Solomon’s dedication, the “visible” Presence of God
appears in the temple, the outward signs which
corresponded to the pillar of smoke by day and the
pillar of fire by night in the temple. The Glory and the
Power are both words which mean nothing else in
Rabbinic Hebrew but God himself in his glory and
power. After the incense and the trumpets in chapter 8
we read that the Naos appeared in heaven with the ark
which was the outward sign of God’s covenant; now the
Naos is filled with the Shekinah.
Just as in the former case we saw some parallelism with
the ceremonial of the Day of Atonement, so the same
is to be found here: No one could enter into the Naos till
the seven plagues of the seven angels were completed. On
the Day of Atonement, once the high priest had
entered the Naos, no one could enter it till he had
finished his work.
But in St. John’s ceremonies there is still no sign of the
high priest. All is entrusted to angels; and the
splendour of his coming is delayed.
The Pouring of the Blood
We now come to another point in which St. John
deserts the order of the Tamid, which has no pouring of
blood at this point; it has been done at the beginning.
There are several reasons for this. St. John is bound to
have two pourings of blood, because he is using the
symbolism of blood avenging; blood has been shed, and
more blood must avenge it.
It was at this point on the Day of Atonement that the
High Priest came out, after cleansing the Naos and
Holy of Holies, in order to smear blood upon the horns
of the altar and cleanse that, following the custom in
all sin-offerings.
The offering on the Day of Atonement was a special
version of the sin-offering, a sin-offering for the High
Priest and for the whole nation; in such cases it was
directed that the carcase should be taken and burnt
“outside the Camp” – that is to say, in historic times,
“outside the City.” I have pointed out how our author
and the author of the Epistle to the Hebrews have
brought out the likeness between this custom and the
crucifixion of our Lord “outside the city.”
In the sin-offering the whole of the remainder of the
Blood was poured out at the foot of the altar; and this
ceremony has provided the basis for what follows in
Revelation. On the Day of Atonement the High Priest
entered the Holy Place and sprinkled Blood Seven
times towards the veil; he then came out with
reconciliation and atonement for the people. Nothing
of the sort occurs in Revelation, because there is no
reconciliation. No High Priest appears. Only a “great
voice” from within the Naos directs the seven angels to
pour out their bowls, and the seven angels in “white
stone” and golden girdles come out with a sevenfold
libation to pour upon the land. It is to be presumed that
in St. John’s thought the land that has been soaked in
the blood of Jesus and his martyrs is one great altar of
burnt- and blood-offerings.
It is a reversal of all values and expectations. There is
no atonement, no reconciliation; what is to follow is
rejection, retribution, and destruction.
The blood-avenging symbolism recurs throughout the
seven bowls. Under the second the sea becomes like
the blood of a corpse. Under the third the rivers
become blood, and a versicle and response follow:
And I heard the voice of the Angel of the Waters
saying,
Righteous art thou, who art and who wast, the Holy; for
thou hast judged these things.
For the blood of saints and prophets they poured out;
and blood thou hast given them to drink.
They are worthy.
And I heard the Altar saying,
Yea, Jehovah God of hosts: true and just are thy
judgments.
I pointed out in the text of the book that the altar here
signifies the martyrs, or their blood spilt on the land.
When the seventh is poured out on the air, a Great
Voice came out of the Naos from the Throne, saying, IT
IS DONE . . . and Babylon the great was remembered
before God to give her the cup of the wine of the anger
of his wrath. Here too the liturgical tone cannot be
missed. “Remembered before God” is a devotional
phrase; and we shall recur to the cup.
5. The Offerings Burnt. – The next stage in the daily
ritual was the burning of all the offerings except the
drink-offering, which was poured out at the foot of the
altar.
Babylon is priest as well as victim. Her fine linen is
priestly. Her purple and gold and scarlet and blue are
priestly. The fine linen recalls the stones of the temple
gleaming white like snow. She is “gilded with gold,”
like the temple. There was in front of the door of the
Naos a “Babylonian tapestry in which blue, purple,
scarlet and linen were mingled with such skill that one
could not look on it without admiration,” as Josephus
tells us.
The merchandise of 18:11, which critics say could
never have come to a small town like Jerusalem, would
all have been used in building and furnishing the
temple; the merchandise of these things must have
employed many ships. And note the irony at the end,
horses and chariots and slaves, yes and the souls of men.
The conjunction of the desert and the scarlet in 17:3
suggests the scapegoat.
Her former lovers are to make her desolate and naked and
eat her flesh, and burn her with fire, and the only excuse
for this horrible symbolism is that it is drawn from the
sin-offering.
A verse of masterly irony is found in 18:5: Her sinofferings
have mounted up to heaven, and God has
remembered her unrighteousness. Hattah in Hebrew
means both sin and sin-offering; not till the last word of
the line, when we read unrighteousness, is the meaning
of the first apparent: it means sins.
239