Tag: Armageddon

Revelation 6-18 isn’t about the antichrist’s persecution

Revelation 6-18 isn’t about the antichrist’s persecution

This is a series of short expositions of Revelation 4-22 from a futurist perspective. Follow along with a timeline here.

As John watches, Jesus (the lamb who was slain, Rev 5:6-10) cracks open the first seal binding the scroll together (Rev 6:1). There are 19 judgments contained within the seven seals, which expand outward like a telescoping hiking pole (see the outline):

  • Seals 1-6 stand alone = judgments 1-6.
  • Seal 7 consists of seven individual judgments, signified by trumpet blasts = judgments 7-12.
  • The seventh trumpet blasts of seal 7 consist of seven individual judgments, shown as bowls of wrath which angels pour out upon the world = judgments 13-19.

But, before we dive into visions of sinister horsemen, we must first clear something up = Revelation 6-18 is not about the antichrist persecuting the world. It is about Jesus pouring out divine wrath upon the antichrist and his kingdom. If you don’t get this straight, you will never understand the book of Revelation. Many Christians are confused here.

  • Revelation 6-18 is not about the antichrist’s reign of terror against believers—the “great tribulation.” Many Christians think it is about that. But they’re wrong (on Revelation 13, see the outline).
  • It is Jesus who opens the seals and unleashes wrath upon the earth; divine wrath against the antichrist’s kingdom. Every judgment that happens—the seals, the trumpets, the bowls—is from Jesus. There is nothing from the antichrist. It is astounding that so many Christians wrongly believe Revelation 6-18 is about the terrors of the great tribulation.
  • The great tribulation largely occurs off camera in John’s vision. Instead, evidence suggests that the vision of Revelation 4-5 (the run-up to Jesus’ wrath unleashed), and those of Revelation 6-18 depict the very tail-end of the antichrist’s reign of terror, when Jesus makes good on his statement that: “if those days had not been cut short, no life would have been saved; but for the sake of the elect those days will be cut short” (Mt 24:22). The divine judgment against the antichrist in Revelation 6-18 is Jesus cutting this awful time short.
  • Instead, Revelation 6-18 is about the time at the end of this seven-year “great tribulation” when Jesus pours out the seven seals of judgment upon the kingdom of darkness.

Given the futuristic chronology of the book, the scenario that makes best sense of the evidence is that:

  1. Antichrist rises to power and makes a covenant with the people of Israel that lasts for seven years (Dan 9:27); then,
  2. In the midst (or middle) of these seven years he lets the mask slip and launches a series of religious persecutions against believers, including the people of ethnic Israel (Dan 9:27; cp. 2 Thess 2; Rev 11, 13); and finally,
  3. At what is likely the nadir of believer’s fortunes during this great tribulation (perhaps when the two witnesses are slain and then raptured to the heavens—Rev 11), Jesus puts an end to this persecution by venting divine wrath onto antichrist and his Babylon kingdom (Rev 6-18).

We know that Revelation 6-18 is about divine wrath (not antichrist’s terror) because Revelation 4-5 shows us the solemn run-up to this day of the Lord, which culminates with the slain Lamb being the only one worthy to break the seals and open the scroll which heralds the better tomorrow (Rev 5:2).

  • Because Jesus has overcome for his people, as our vicarious and righteous substitute, he alone may open the scroll and its seven seals (Rev 5:5).
  • As if to solemnize this awful but necessary time of divine wrath against evil, the angelic creatures sing: “Worthy are You to take the scroll and to break its seals; for You were slaughtered, and You purchased people for God with Your blood from every tribe, language, people, and nation” (Rev 5:9). 
  • Before Jesus can receive power, honor, glory, blessing, “and dominion forever and ever,” he must first destroy his evil counterpart and his wicked kingdom. What follows in Revelation 6-18 are the seven-sealed judgments of wrath against the antichrist and Babylon.

The horsemen, the brimstone, the incineration of one-third of the earth’s vegetation, the waters turning to blood, the mutant, demonic locust-like creatures—all the “bad stuff” we associate with Revelation is divine wrath against antichrist and his followers. The antichrist is doing none of this! Instead, Jesus is doing it to the antichrist and to his people.[1]

This suggests this “time of testing—the one about to come upon the whole world to test those who dwell on the earth” (Rev 3:10) is against unbelievers—against the antichrist and his followers.[2]Jesus is testing whether they will repent and choose Jesus or cling to darkness. Some translations use the word “trial” here, but this not the best because Jesus is not evaluating the faith of unbelievers. He is testing whether unbelievers will truly continue to reject him.

These series of judgment end with the Lord destroying Babylon, and the antichrist’s people wailing because Jesus has smashed their world (Rev 18:9-19).

  • “Rejoice over her, O heaven, and you saints and apostles and prophets, because God has pronounced judgment for you against her” (Rev 18:20).
  • When Lord vanquishes the kingdom of evil, John tells us: “I heard something like the voice of a great multitude and like the sound of many waters, and like the sound of mighty peals of thunder, saying, ‘Hallelujah! For the Lord our God, the Almighty, reigns’” (Rev 19:6).
  • At that point, Jesus returns to establish his kingdom on earth (Rev 19:11-21).

So, the “time of testing” (Rev 6-18) is not the antichrist’s persecution of believers—it is Jesus’ wrath upon the kingdom of darkness. Yet, many Christians continue to believe that Revelation 6-18 depicts the antichrist’s reign of terror. This is false. Instead, it depicts Babylon (and Satan) being pummeled and destroyed by a series of 19 successive hammer blow judgments from on high.

Once we get this straight in our minds, we are ready to consider the six judgments of the first six seals that Jesus looses upon the empire of evil. We turn to this in our next article.

[1] Buist Fanning briefly states that the ones who hide from Jesus’ wrath in Revelation 6:16-17 are believers who die because of the divine judgments, but this makes no sense in context. He does not try to substantiate the claim—he just makes it in one sentence (Revelation, in ZECNT (Grand Rapids: Zondervan, 2020), 177). The truth is that these people are likely unbelievers who follow the antichrist.

[2] “There the faithful are sealed with a view to their preservation from the assaults of demons, but are not thereby secured against physical death … It will be observed that the demonic trial spoken of, while worldwide, was to affect only ‘those that dwell upon the earth,’ i.e. the non-Christians” (R. H. Charles, A Critical and Exegetical Commentary on the Revelation of St. John, vol. 1, in ICC (Edinburgh: T&T Clark, 1920), 89).

Revelation 4

Revelation 4

This is a series of short expositions of Revelation 4-22 from a futurist perspective. Follow along with a timeline here.

After the revelation of Jesus’ messages to the churches (Rev 1:9 – 3:22), the apostle John sees something else. A door is open in heaven, like an invitation. A voice booms out at him—the voice of Jesus. It was he who ordered John to copy down the messages to the churches (“the first voice which I heard,” cp. Rev 1:10-13), and it’s him again who says: “Come up here, and I will show you what must take place after these things” (Rev 4:1). Some bible teachers argue passionately that Revelation’s events here (Rev 4-19) focusses on Israel, because the church is in heaven, because the pre-tribulation rapture must have happened sometime between the end of Revelation 3 and the start of Revelation 4.[1] This is a weak argument from silence (see the article “Does Revelation 3:10 Teach a Pre-Tribulation Rapture?”), and instead we will simply take the text as we find it.

Immediately after receiving this open-door invite, John tells us he was “in the Spirit,” which likely means he felt as if he’d entered a different spiritual plane—this is an ecstatic vision given by the Spirit, not just shown to him but experienced, too. He sees, as if beyond the beckoning door, a strange figure seated on a throne in heaven. In words reminiscent of Ezekiel’s so long ago (Ezek 1:26-28), John tells of a man glittering as a jewel, surrounded by a rainbow that glinted and sparkled in deep emerald hues (Rev 4:3).

24 creatures sit on 24 thrones arrayed round about this mysterious man (Rev 4:4). John calls them “elders,” a word which could mean older men, or religious leaders (i.e., pastors). Here, it seems to refer to angelic creatures of some stripe[2] (we’ll come back to them soon). They’re clad in white robes and wear golden crowns.

As is his way, the apostle John borrows old covenant language to describe the scene. Just as when the people of Israel did when they came to Mt. Sinai (Ex 19:16), John sees “flashes of lightning and sounds and peals of thunder” coming out from the throne (Rev 4:5).

Seven lamps of fire, which are God’s seven Spirits, flicker and burn before the throne (Rev 4:5). These seem to be the heavenly reality which the temple’s golden lampstand foreshadowed (Ex 25:37). Much ink has been spilt on these “seven spirits of God,” which are likely the Holy Spirit. John’s visions include letters to seven churches, seven Spirits before the throne of God above, seven seals on the judgment scroll which Jesus slowly cracks open throughout this book, seven trumpet blast judgments within the seventh seal judgment, and seven bowl judgments nestled within the seventh trumpet judgment. Elsewhere, Daniel tells us of that 70 “sevens” will elapse before the Lord’s program for this present evil age is complete (Dan 9:24-27). In short, “seven” is a number that inevitably calls to mind “fullness” or “completeness.” If the seven lamps are the Holy Spirit, then because we will shortly meet the Lamb who was slain standing between the elders and the throne (in ch. 5), then we have the Trinity in God’s throne room.

Also, in this scene there are images so fantastic that John scarcely knows what to make of them. We get the strong impression that he tries his best to describe the indescribable. Imagine an average American in 1850 trying to describe to his family a vision of a mobile phone with the Amazon app! He wouldn’t have the words or concepts to imagine such a thing—the conceptual distance is far too great. Perhaps the best he could do would be to liken it to a portable telegraph without wires—but even that would be inaccurate. John seems to be doing something like that.

There is a glassy sea, like crystal, surrounding the shimmering, rainbow-emerald throne. Around the throne are four bizarre creatures bursting with eyes all around, sporting faces of (in turn) a lion, a calf, a man, and that of an eagle. They each have six wings (Rev 4:6-8).

  • These are remarkably similar to what Ezekiel saw when he beheld an image of God’s throne room (Ezek 1:4-21). The figures he described are not identical to John’s, but they are close. They’re so close that surely they saw the same thing.
  • It’s not worth our time to object that Ezekiel’s creatures had four wings and different faces. Both John and Ezekiel are describing the indescribable in the best language they knew. To return to our 19th century analogy: it doesn’t matter if one time-traveler from 1835 Kentucky describes a portable telegraph, while another tells of a glowing black brick with a burning silhouette of an apple on the back—they’re clearly seeing the same thing!
  • Isaiah saw and recorded almost exactly what John did and called these creatures “seraphim” (Isa 6:1-3).

The point is not what the seraphim are—they’re otherworldly creatures, accept it and move on! The point is what they and the 24 elders do and why they do it.

  • First, the four seraphim: “[A]nd day and night they do not cease to say, ‘Holy, holy, holy is the Lord God, the Almighty, who was and who is and who is to come’ (Rev 4:8). This is precisely what Isaiah heard (and saw) during his own ecstatic temple vision (Isa 6:1-3). The seraphim praise God’s eternity—he always was, always is, and always will be. He has no beginning and no end.
  • Second, the 24 elders: As the seraphim sing their praise, the elders bow down to the figure on the throne, cast off their golden crowns, and declare: “Worthy are You, our Lord and our God, to receive glory and honor and power; for You created all things, and because of Your will they existed, and were created” (Rev 4:11).

This is very dramatic, and it’s meant to be that way. If this were a movie, there would be haunting music, ratcheting tension, and expectation of some “big moment.” Jesus, the lamb slain to rescue his people and to reclaim a ruined world, is about to unleash judgment upon the kingdom of darkness. This vision of praise and solemn majesty is the backdrop for this unfortunate but necessary event.

  • YHWH is eternal—this means he has the jurisdiction and authority to move against a terrorist insurgency.
  • YHWH is the creator of everything—this means he has the power and justification to put down Satan’s rebellion.

Our dramatic scene continues in the next chapter with a ceremony of sorts that ends with Jesus taking the scroll of judgment. It is this document which, when slowly cracked open, unleashes divine fury upon the antichrist and his kingdom of evil (Rev 6-18).

[1] John Walvoord, The Revelation of Jesus Christ (Chicago: Moody Press, 1966), 101-103.

[2] Walvoord suggests they represent the Body of Christ (Revelation, 106-107), but this is largely driven by his assumption that the church has been raptured away to heaven—an argument from silence.