Revelation 15 Identifying With The Lord

 

Revelation 15  Praising God For His Final Judgment

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.

2 And I saw something like a sea of glass mingled with fire, and those who have the victory over the beast, over his image and over his mark and over the number of his name, standing on the sea of glass, having harps of God. 3 They sing the song of Moses, the servant of God, and the song of the Lamb, saying:

" Great and marvelous are Your works, Lord God Almighty!

Just and true are Your ways, O King of the saints!

4 Who shall not fear You, O Lord, and glorify Your name?

For You alone are holy.

For all nations shall come and worship before You,

For Your judgments have been manifested."

5 After these things I looked, and behold, the temple of the tabernacle of the testimony in heaven was opened. 6 And out of the temple came the seven angels having the seven plagues, clothed in pure bright linen, and having their chests girded with golden bands. 7 Then one of the four living creatures gave to the seven angels seven golden bowls full of the wrath of God who lives forever and ever. 8 The temple was filled with smoke from the glory of God and from His power, and no one was able to enter the temple till the seven plagues of the seven angels were completed.

 

 

Why should the holiness of God inspire us to worship Him?

Why is God's Justice so important in a time when every man does what is right in his own eyes?

 

 

There is a philosophical / theological term that is used in this passage that gives us an understanding of the times we live in, and the purposes of God at the end of the age. It is the term telos.  It means purpose or end or completion or fulfillment.

 

Teleo.  Καὶ εἶδον ἄλλο σημεῖον ἐν τῷ οὐρανῷ μέγα καὶ θαυμαστόν, ἀγγέλους ἑπτὰ ἔχοντας πληγὰς ἑπτὰ τὰς ἐσχάτας, ὅτι ἐν αὐταῖς ἐτελέσθη ὁ θυμὸς τοῦ θεοῦ.

8 καὶ ἐγεμίσθη ὁ ναὸς καπνοῦ ἐκ τῆς δόξης τοῦ θεοῦ καὶ ἐκ τῆς δυνάμεως αὐτοῦ, καὶ οὐδεὶς ἐδύνατο εἰσελθεῖν εἰς τὸν ναὸν ἄχρι τελεσθῶσιν αἱ ἑπτὰ πληγαὶ τῶν ἑπτὰ ἀγγέλων.

 

Teleo. It is a word that refers to God completing His Purposes.

It is finished.  John 19.

The word of a merchant. The Price is Paid.

The word of a Priest. The perfection of the sacrifice of the Lord Jesus is that perfect sacrifice.

The word of a Judge.  The penalty and sentence has been completed.

The word of a painter. The very last piece of the painting is completed.

 

The seven bowl judgments described in the next chapter are the completion, the fulfilment, The Filling Full, the filling up, of the wrath of God.

It is talking about the completion of the age, and the completion of the time of tribulation.

The seven bowls are clearly modelled on the Exodus plagues, as will be seen, and the song of 15:3-4 is similar to the song of Moses after the Red Sea crossing found in Exodus 15. These seven bowls are referred to as "last" because they portray the full-orbed wrath of God in a more intense manner than any of the previous woe visions.

 

It is speaking of the way that the story of the world is completed.

There are many stories around.

Carl R. Trueman The Rise and Triumph of the Modern Self: Cultural Amnesia, Expressive Individualism, and the Road to Sexual Revolution

Trueman asks:

How has the current highly individualistic, iconoclastic, sexually obsessed, and materialistic mindset come to triumph in the West? Or, to put the question in a more pressing and specific fashion; Why does the sentence "I am a woman trapped in a man's body" make sense not simply to those who have sat in poststructuralist and queer-theory seminars but to my neighbors, to people I pass on the street, to coworkers who have no particular political ax to grind and who are blissfully unaware of the rebarbative jargon and arcane concepts of Michel Foucault and his myriad epigones and incomprehensible imitators? The statement is, after all, emblematic of a view of personhood that has almost completely dispensed with the idea of any authority beyond that of personal, psychological conviction, an oddly Cartesian notion: I think I am a woman, therefore I am a woman. How did such a strange idea become the common orthodox currency of our culture?

To make some attempt at addressing the issue, it is useful to take note of a helpful concept deployed by Canadian philosopher Charles Taylor in his analysis of how societies think, that of the social imaginary. In A Secular Age, he offers a major analysis of the way modern society in general, and not just the intellectual classes, has moved away from being permeated by Christianity and religious faith to the point that such are no longer the default for the majority of people but actually are rather exceptional. In the course of his argument, he introduces the idea of the social imaginary to address the question of how theories developed by social elites might be related to the way ordinary people think and act, even when such people have never read these elites or spent any time self-consciously reflecting on the implications of their theories. Here is how he defines the concept:

I want to speak of "social imaginary" here, rather than social theory, because there are important differences between the two. There are, in fact, several differences. I speak of "imaginary" (i) because I'm talking about the way ordinary people "imagine" their social surroundings, and this is often not expressed in theoretical terms, it is carried in images, stories, legends, etc. But it is also the case that (ii) theory is often the possession of a small minority, whereas what is interesting in the social imaginary is that it is shared by large groups of people, if not the whole society. Which leads to a third difference: (iii) the social imaginary is that common understanding which makes possible common practices, and a widely shared sense of legitimacy.

..The social imaginary is a somewhat amorphous concept precisely because it refers to the myriad beliefs, practices, normative expectations, and even implicit assumptions that members of a society share and that shape their daily lives. It is not so much a conscious philosophy of life as a set of intuitions and practices."

And it is conveyed in stories. "In sum, the social imaginary is the way people think about the world, how they imagine it to be, how they act intuitively in relation to it—though that is emphatically not to make the social imaginary simply into a set of identifiable ideas.3 It is the totality of the way we look at our world, to make sense of it and to make sense of our behavior within it."

A second useful element in Taylor's work that connects to the social imaginary and to which we will have recourse is the relationship between mimesis and poiesis. Put simply, these terms refer to two different ways of thinking about the world. A mimetic view regards the world as having a given order and a given meaning and thus sees human beings as required to discover that meaning and conform themselves to it. Poiesis, by way of contrast, sees the world as so much raw material out of which meaning and purpose can be created by the individual.

Both of Taylor's major works—Sources of the Self and A Secular Age—are narratives that tell the story of the move in Western culture from a predominantly mimetic view of the world to one that is primarily poietic. Various matters characterize this shift. As society moves from a view of the world as possessing intrinsic meaning, so it also moves away from a view of humanity as having a specific, given end. Teleology is thereby attenuated, whether it is that of Aristotle, with his view of man as a political animal and his understanding of ethics as an important function of that, or that of Christianity, with its notion that human life in this earthly sphere is to be regulated by the fact that humanity's ultimate destiny is eternal communion with God.

To make this point more clearly, one might reflect on the nature of life in medieval Europe, a predominantly agrarian society. Given that agricultural technology was then, by today's standards, relatively primitive, farming was utterly dependent on geography and the seasons. These were givens; while the farmer would plough up the ground and scatter the seed, he had no control over the weather, minimal control over the soil, and thus comparatively little control over whether his endeavors would succeed. That might well have meant for many that they had no control over life or death: they were entirely at the mercy of the environment.

In such a world, the authority of the created order was obvious and unavoidable. The world was what it was, and the individual needed to conform to it. Sowing seed in December or harvesting crops in March was doomed to failure. Yet with the advent of more-advanced agricultural technology, this given authority of the environment became increasingly attenuated. The development of irrigation meant that water could be moved or stored and then used when necessary. Increased knowledge of soil science and fertilizers and pesticides meant that the land could be manipulated to yield more and better crops. More controversially, the recent development of genetics has allowed for the production of foods that are immune to certain conditions or parasites."

Man has power to control his environment. Man has power to control. Man has power that he is no longer subject to the big story of dependence upon God.

 

 

I believe this is the reason for the presentation of this passage here to us in Revelation 15.

The Lord is setting forth the story of liberation and deliverance in the song of Moses the servant of God.

The story of the Exodus out of Egyptian slavery is miraculous. In fact the existence of Israel today argues for the importance of this story of liberation and deliverance of a large population of people numbering above a million, through the Red Sea, that drowns the Egyptians, the story of the Lamb's blood poured out so that the angel of death would pass over.  It is a story repeated yearly in every Jewish family at Passover, with deep reverence for it is the story of the nation's liberation and deliverance.

Marxism's promise of liberation and deliverance for economically oppressed peoples is a pale shade upon the Exodus story's miraculous deliverance and formation of a nation!

It is this story of redemption and deliverance that provides the mimetic view (to use Taylor's words) of a God who stands outside of other people's worldviews and proclaims Himself as the Judge and measure of all truth and justice. He is the God who gives the Ten Commandments!

 

The current strangeness of our culture, has brought about a culture of Self.  Self identity and self fulfillment, primarily understood in sexual terms, has been promulgated as the narrative of deliverance and freedom and liberation. It is the wrong story!

Trueman writes:

"Indeed, in characterizing the modern age as that of psychological man, Rieff makes a point very similar to that of Charles Taylor in his understanding of the human self: that psychological categories and an inward focus are the hallmarks of being a modern person. This is what Taylor refers to as expressive individualism, that each of us finds our meaning by giving expression to our own feelings and desires. For Taylor, this kind of self exists in what he describes as a culture of authenticity, which he defines as follows:

The understanding of life which emerges with the Romantic expressivism of the late eighteenth century, that each of us has his/her own way of realizing our humanity, and that it is important to find and live out one's own, as against surrendering to conformity with a model imposed on us from outside, by society, or the previous generation, or religious or political authority

This leads Tim Keller to comment on rise and dominance of The Therapeutic Self:

"The modern therapeutic self is a recent approach to identity. We are to look within at our desires—especially our sexual ones--and then determine (Freud) or create (Foucault) who we are, not allowing anyone else to validate or define us or make us feel guilty.  We are then to demand that the world affirm our expression of ourselves. Anyone who questions our self-view is by definition doing violence, questioning our very existence, and denying us agency. But why should we believe and accept this understanding of identity?

In most of the non-western world, identity is communal. You don't get to define yourself—identity is negotiated with the community—and self-esteem comes more from doing duty to God, family, and others rather than from satisfying desires and self-interest.

When the therapist says: "Don't let anyone tell you who you are—you decide who you are!"—at that moment he or she is ironically imposing a very individualistic, western, 'white' way of understanding identity on the patient as if it is the only approach possible. It is "white" because it was grounded in the Enlightenment & Freud, & framed to be a new form of social liberation vs oppression, and based on Foucault's account of language and power. And as noted, non-white cultures are far less individualistic and do not think this way.

This gives us 2 problems. Problem #1 is that you cannot discover a 'real you' by looking at your changing and contradictory inner feelings. You will need a standard of values by which we will sift our inner drives & determine which ones characterize our 'true' & 'false' selves. Christians believe the Bible gives us that standard to determine our de-humanizing desires and our right, humanizing ones. Problem #2 is that the modern identity is highly performative. You must realize your inner dreams and desires or constantly perform your suffering. This leads to fragility and a need for constant re-affirmation. No wonder any criticism at all is crushing or feels "controlling".

"In the worlds of political, religious, and economic man, commitment was outwardly directed to those communal beliefs, practices, and institutions that were bigger than the individual and in which the individual, to the degree that he or she conformed to or cooperated with them, found meaning. The ancient Athenian was committed to the assembly, the medieval Christian to his church, and the twentieth-century factory worker to his trade union and working man's club. All of them found their purpose and well-being by being committed to something outside themselves. In the world of psychological man, however, the commitment is first and foremost to the self and is inwardly directed. Thus, the order is reversed. Outward institutions become in effect the servants of the individual and her sense of inner well-being." Trueman.

"That which hinders my outward expression of my inner feelings—that which challenges or attempts to falsify my psychological beliefs about myself and thus to disturb my sense of inner well-being—is by definition harmful and to be rejected. And that means that traditional institutions must be transformed to conform to the psychological self, not vice versa.

This could also be described, using Taylor's terminology, as the triumph of expressive individualism and of poiesis over mimesis. If education is to allow the individual simply to be himself, unhindered by outward pressure to conform to any greater reality, then the individual is king. He can be whoever he wants to be. And rejecting the notion of any external authority or meaning to which education is to conform, the individual simply makes himself the creator of any meaning that there might be."

But why is dissent from the sexual revolution so horrendous that it is to be eradicated? The answer is political liberation. The oppressive nature of bourgeois society is built on repressive sexual codes that maintain the patriarchal nuclear family as the norm. As long as this state of affairs holds, there can be no true liberation, political or economic. Shattering sexual codes is therefore one of the principal emancipatory tasks of the political revolutionary.

With no higher order to which we might look in order to understand human existence teleologically, we both are isolated from the past, where ends transcending the individual were assumed, and are left free floating in the present. Our world really is starting to look like the brave new world described by Aldous Huxley, a place where life is lived merely for the present, where the pleasures of the immediate moment—whether produced by artificial means (drugs, consumption, virtual reality) or by sterile sex—are the only things that truly matter.

 

However, revelation 15 reminds us that there is a God who is Just and True and Holy.

He is the only One who can give true freedom and a true self-identity, not one limited to only the sexual.

 

This is why in the book of Revelation, there is the Revelation of the Song of Deliverance and liberation that reflects that God has a purpose in all history, philosophy and humanity that stands outside all self-definitions of truth and justice.  And it is the true and only valid Story of Deliverance and Liberation in the Lamb of God who was slain for our sins.

 

 

The Song of Moses the servant of God and of the Lamb counters this deep problem in society.

The Song of Moses the servant of God, and of the Lamb is a story of true liberation.

It has an identity from above, regardless of how the individual person feels about their own self-identity.

It has a purpose that is the story of the history of the universe, regardless of the individual's desire to find his own purpose without regard to God's overriding purposes.

It has a liberation from the futility of relationships that are entirely selfish (and entirely sexual)  that is found in a true  real relationship with the God who created all things and a real identifying identity with those who are engaged in His purposes for all humanity, without regard to the individual's desire to make the world revolve around them.

 

Tim Keller writes "Christians' deepest identity is in Christ, who loves and accepts us counter-conditionally, despite all our flaws.  So Christian identity is received, not achieved, taking enormous pressure off of us to perform and merit our affirmation. Most of the criticisms of the biblical sex ethic assume the modern 'therapeutic self' as a given—it is assumed as self-evident to all when clearly it is not.  Realize your identity may have been hijacked by a very individualistic, western, 'white' way of understanding identity. It is not the only approach possible.

Roman Empire: "You Christians are too exclusive. You threaten the social order because you won't honor all deities."

Modern West: "You Christians are too exclusive. You threaten the social order because you won't honor all identities."  Actually it is the deification of the individual's sexual fulfilment that is the deeper issue. It is not that far different to the deification of sexuality present in the Cannaanite gods of the Asherah and the Baal.  Baal was a pagan deity represented by s statue of a large male sexual organ. Asherah were a cluster of trees to represent female fertility.  Maachah the Queen mother "had made an obscene image of Asherah".1 Kings 15:13

Revelation 15:1 (NKJV) 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.

Just prior to the final bowl judgments, the scene shifts to heaven, as it did prior to both the seal judgments (Rev. 4-5) and the trumpet judgments (Rev. 8:2-6). This serves to remind us that all that is happening on earth is inextricably connected to the throne of heaven. The God of heaven rules over all events on earth.

In fulfillment of Dan. 7:10-11, the Lamb's "overcoming" has also paved the way for the saints' "overcoming" of the beast at the sea, those who had come off victorious from the beast and from his image and from the number of his name. They are victorious only because the Lamb has conquered and granted them a share in the effects of His victory at the sea. They are those who have refused to compromise their faith in the midst of pressure and persecution, like the three faithful youths who refused to worship the king's image in Daniel 3 (for full explanation of the threefold reference to the beast, his image, and his number in v. 2 see on 13:15-18). Victory over the number of his name is included to emphasize that they have resisted alliances with the beast which would cause them to fall short of their redemption (see on 13:18 with respect to the meaning of 666). That they are standing on the sea of glass, holding harps of God shows that they themselves have been involved in battle against the sea-beast and have fought in the midst of the unbelieving world (see 17:15, where the "waters" are defined as ungodly masses of people in the world).

 

Like God's people of old, so God's new covenant people praise Him by singing the song of Moses the bond-servant of God. Moses is called God's servant in Exod. 14:31, immediately before his singing in ch. 15. However, the song now is about the much greater deliverance accomplished through the work of the Lamb. The saints praise the Lamb's victory as the typological fulfillment of that to which the Red Sea victory pointed.

 

2 And I saw something like a sea of glass mingled with fire, and those who have the victory over the beast, over his image and over his mark and over the number of his name, standing on the sea of glass, having harps of God.3 They sing the song of Moses, the servant of God, and the song of the Lamb, saying:

" Great and marvelous are Your works, Lord God Almighty!

Just and true are Your ways, O King of the saints!

4 Who shall not fear You, O Lord, and glorify Your name?

For You alone are holy.

For all nations shall come and worship before You,

For Your judgments have been manifested."

 

 

God's Purpose (teleio) Stands Because God is Just and True

3 " Great and marvelous are Your works, Lord God Almighty! (Ps. 111:2-3)

Just and true are Your ways, O King of the saints!

His redemption through Christ has brought to supreme expression how He demonstrates His justice. Those trusting in Christ have the penalty of their sin paid for by His blood (so 1:5-6; 5:9; 7:14; 12:11), but those rejecting the divine provision will bear their own penalty for sin (cf. Rom. 3:19-20).

The wrath that is about to come on the earth is for all those who have rejected God's just way to make people redeemed.

Just as His works were great and wonderful in judging the Egyptians at the Red Sea, they also are and will be great and will cause astonishment in punishing the world through the seven last plagues. – Robert Thomas

King of the nations! (NASB) The concluding title King of the nations explains further that God is sovereign in His people's history because He rules all the nations with whom they come into contact. The same idea is expressed in 11:15-18, where the kingdoms of this world have become His kingdom.

God's Purpose (teleio) Stands Because God is Holy

4 Who shall not fear You, O Lord, and glorify Your name?

For You alone are holy. For all nations shall come and worship before You,

For Your judgments have been manifested."

He is holy. The holiness of God refers not simply to a set of moral attributes but to the fact that God is completely set apart in those attributes from His creation. God should be feared because He is holy and because His righteous acts have been revealed. V. 4 concludes suitably with another OT reminiscence of the exodus from Ps. 98:2: "The Lord … has revealed His righteousness in the sight of the nations." The Psalm begins with a reference to Exod. 15:1, 6, 12: "O sing to the Lord a new song…. His right hand and His holy arm have gained the victory for Him." It also encourages the singers of the "new song" to play harps (98:5), as in Rev. 5:8; 14:2-3; 15:2-3. The Psalm's references to the exodus form part of the basis for a final statement that God "will judge the world with righteousness, and the peoples with equity" (Ps. 98:9). The same transition of thought (the exodus leading to God's judgment of the nations) is present in Revelation 15, where the "song" of the first exodus serves as a broad model for the end-time exodus. The seven plagues of the bowl judgments will emphasize this exodus theme. God pours out His judgments on the unbelieving nations.." 15:8 signifies God's judgment of the world for breaking His commandments.

The reference to the "tabernacle of testimony" refers to the place where the tablets of the Law were kept. These angels leave God's presence because the Law has been violated. And they leave with the "seven plagues" (v. 6). – Ed Hindson

Revelation 15:6 (NKJV) 6 And out of the temple came the seven angels having the seven plagues, clothed in pure bright linen, and having their chests girded with golden bands.

Clothed in pure bright linen – representing holiness.

Golden bands (belts – sashes) – representing the glory of heaven.

Revelation 15:7 (NKJV) 7 Then one of the four living creatures gave to the seven angels seven golden bowls full of the wrath of God who lives forever and ever.

Full of the wrath of God: Again signifying that this will bring God's judgment to a completion. Full means to the brim.

The bowls are full to the brim with the hot anger of God. The fullness speaks of the devastating character as well as the finality of the coming divine judgment.

– Robert Thomas

God's Purpose (teleio) Stands Because God is Eternal

7 Then one of the four living creatures gave to the seven angels seven golden bowls full of the wrath of God who lives forever and ever.

who lives forever and ever. This phrase "forever and ever" occurs 21 times in Revelation. 17 times it speaks of God. God is eternal. This is the wrath of the eternal God. He is not someone who poses as a god for awhile. He lives forever and ever. Note also that this same phrase is used 3 times in reference to the duration of the punishment of the lost. This emphasizes the never-ending nature of 156

 

God's Purpose (teleio) Stands Because God is Glorious

8 The temple was filled with smoke from the glory of God and from His power,

 

…

 

World History is the story of purpose.

World History is the story of the purpose of the humanity.

World History is the story of your purpose.

There is God's Story of His Purpose of Liberation

There is God's Story of His Purpose of redemption and deliverance

There is God's Story of His Purpose For Your Life

 

No one was able to enter the temple: This speaks of God's absolute holiness, harking back to verse 4. Apparently, God at this point is unapproachable. There is no more ministry of intercession, no more prayers on behalf of the lost, no more invitations, no more window of opportunity. Judgment at this point is irreversible. The lost will be lost and the saved will be saved. All decisions are in and are final. Nothing remains except for the judgment to fall.

Until the 7 plagues are finished, no one is able to enter the temple. Once the time of final judgment has come, none can stay the hand of God. The time for intercession is past. God in His unapproachable majesty and power has declared that the end has come. No longer does He stand knocking: He enters to act in sovereign judgment.  - Robert Mounce

 

Barnhouse writes: "It should be understood by now that the sweep of events from eternity to eternity which we have described from the Word of God are in a sequence which demands a continuation and a fulfillment. If we should suspend our narrative, even with the death and Resurrection of Christ, it would be an incomplete story. For though Christ defeated Satan at the tomb, yet for this little while Satan continues in command of much of the field, and he could claim a semblance of victory. Christ must reign until He hath put all enemies under His feet (1 Cor 15:25), but now we see not yet all things put under Him (Hebrews 2:8). Those who wish to confine their preaching to the past work of Christ or to the present daily struggle with the forces of evil have an incomplete Gospel. Each chapter has built more and more toward the culminating point: the purpose of the redemption and the present conflict, namely, that God may be all in all (I Corinthians 15:28). In order to reach this end, it is necessary that the whole prophetic fulfillment, announced by God, should be brought to pass. The glory of God demands it, and the creation groans for it. "For we know that the whole creation groaneth and travaileth in pain together until now. And not only they, but ourselves also, which have the firstfruits of the Spirit, even we ourselves groan within ourselves, waiting for the adoption, that is, the redemption of our body. For we are saved in this hope" (Romans 8:22-24). Henry Alford ends his great hymn with a verse that expresses the longing for this climax of all the revelation of God:

Bring near Thy great salvation,

Thou Lamb for sinners slain; Fill up the roll of Thine elect,

Then take Thy power and reign; Appear, Desire of nations —

Thine exiles long for home; Show in the Heaven Thy promised sign;

Thou Prince and Saviour, come.