Revelation Chapter 15

VERSE 1 “Then I saw another sign in heaven, great and marvelous: seven angels having the seven last plagues, for in them the wrath of God is complete.”

THEN I SAW:

Three times in this chapter (Verses 1, 2, 5) John refocuses our attention. To help understand this chapter, it is good to see these three focuses and their purposes.

A) The first focus (Verse 1) is on angels which have plagues which will finish God’s (These angels will recur in the third section of this chapter.) The purpose of this verse is to introduce the subject of the plagues.

B) The second focus (Verses 2-4) is on the position and activity of the risen saints during this Harvest time when the plagues are to be poured out. The purpose of these verses is to show us that the glorified saints (since D. 1878 — Rev. 14:13) are participants in the works going on in glory. The question of what they are doing is raised by their “change” (Rev 14:13). They cannot yet administer the New Covenant (Rev 15:8), but they can and do cooperate in the destruction of the old order — the administration of the plagues.

C) The third focus (Verses 5-8) is on two things: The temple and its relationship to the seven angels. The purpose of these verses is to show that the seven angels are in glory and are provided with the means (the bowls) to pour out God’s wrath. It additionally shows that the New Covenant arrangement cannot come into operation until the wrath of God is over — even though the glorification of the saints has begun (D. 1878).

ANOTHER SIGN IN HEAVEN:

The only other place we have this expression is in Rev 12:3 where its contrast with 12:1 is obvious. Here, the contrast is not obvious. Apparently, this expression serves as a connector to the thoughts just considered in Chapter 14. Chapter 14 does not mention a “sign in heaven” as such, but it is clearly full of signs in heaven. To summarize the last half of Chapter 14, we could say the “sign in heaven” was the harvesting of wheat and grapes.

Now here in Verse 1 of Chapter 15 we have “another sign,” and just as in the contrast between Rev 12:1 and 12:3, the signs of Chapters 14 and 15 are related. The harvesting of wheat and grapes will be accomplished in large measure by the plaguing of Babylon.

GREAT AND MARVELOUS:

The plagues are great because they end God’s wrath! They are marvelous because they progress and do their work with few even knowing they are going on!

How strange this must seem?

SEVEN ANGELS:

The evidence is strong that these seven are the same seven who blew the seven Trumpets and who, therefore, are the seven angels to the seven Churches of Chapters 2 and 3.

The first evidence is that in Rev 17:1, one of these seven introduces himself to John and teaches John throughout the Harvest period: and this angel is a MAN (Rev 19:10; 21:9; 21:17; 22:9). See, How to Study the book of Revelation, Part 25.

This angel (messenger) is Charles Russell. If one of these angels is identified as the angel to the 7th Church, the other six come by deduction.

The second evidence is that these plagues are aimed at the same targets at which their corresponding Trumpets blew

Why should the trumpets and their correspondingly numbered plagues have the same objectives?

Because the world didn’t listen to the Trumpets. The truths of the Trumpets must be forced upon them by the plagues. (See comments on Rev 8:5, here.)

The third evidence follows:

WHO HAD SEVEN PLAGUES:

This statement again shows that these angels already possessed (“had”, past tense) these plagues. These plagues are the same truths about which they trumpeted while in the flesh. The idea of seven trumpets-worth of messages accumulating to become seven plagues is similar to Joshua’s march around Jericho once daily for six days, but seven times on the seventh day accomplishing the collapse of the city.

The correspondence to the Egyptian plagues is inescapable except that Egypt had ten. However, Trumpets five through seven are called “woes” (Rev 8:13) and Scripturally (Rev 9:18, 20) did plaguing works. They appear to be the first three after which come the seven last plagues. The Egyptian plagues were also thus divided. See Exod 8:22 where, after the third plague, the Israelite’s were separate from the Egyptians — even as the saints are to be from Babylon after A.D. 1878 (Rev 18:4).

WHICH ARE THE LAST, BECAUSE IN THEM THE WRATH OF GOD IS FINISHED:

This is a most delightful prospect for those who have been awaiting everlasting peace. Our attitude must be one of great joy as we see each succeeding plague begun, thus bringing us to that day when there will be no more wrath!

In our next post we will take a look at Verse 1 from another perspective.