Sunday School Notes: Revelation 8:13

¹³ And I looked, and I heard the sound of one eagle flying high in the sky, saying with a loud voice, “Woe! Woe! Woe! [to] those dwelling upon the earth from the rest of the trumpet blasts of the three angels about to trumpet!”

We started this week with something that occurred to me as I thought about our discussion last time about the seals and the trumpets. When we discussed the seals originally, I made the point that the events described by each seal could apply to any point in church history. Whether in the first, third, tenth, or twentieth century, the church somewhere in the world has been able to relate to the calamities of the first four seals. The fifth seal really sums up the voice of the church since the resurrection: “How long, O Lord?” With the sixth seal, we get a prelude to the answer to that prayer. So, at this point, I’d be willing to suggest a broad chronological sequence: the seals represent what’s been happening to the church since the church was established. The trumpets show how Christ and his church will eventually be vindicated. But we must still remember that this is a vision, so we must be careful not to take what John describes too literally. We must remain aware of the Old Testament background, and the significance of the symbolism. This is a letter of hope, to remind the church that the Lord is sovereign, and He will fulfill His promises to His people. Revelation is not a code for divining the specific time and events of the Lord’s return.

The verse we looked at today serves as a transition between the first four trumpets and the final three. We’ve already observed the fact that John spends a lot more time on these latter three than he did the first four. Also, the last three are called “woes,” a title not given to the first four. This tells us that the remaining trumpets signal particularly bad things about to happen. Why this arrangement? I think there’s a building crescendo with the trumpets. With the first we we had hail and fire and a third of the earth burning. The second brought death to all the sea creatures. With the third we had the water being affected by wormwood and rendered undrinkable. Then the fourth trumpet heralds darkness as a third of the sun, moon, and stars are unable to shine. Notice the repetition of “one third,” as if to indicate a limited scope to these judgments. Also, these judgments appear to be “natural”–that is, a secularist could appeal to natural phenomenon to explain these things.

When we get to the fifth and sixth trumpets, we see judgments of a more overtly supernatural nature. The destroying locusts, which John could only describe by simile, having never seen anything that looked like them before, emerge as giants from the abyss. Four angels on strange lion-like horses spewing sulfur and smoke bring death. And while we are only told of a third of unbelievers dying, unlike the others, John makes note of the other two-thirds, that they refused to repent. Their time is coming, and indeed it does with the final trumpet, and the return of the Lord.

I think, therefore, the reason for the increased attention given to the final three trumpets has to do with the more intense nature of the judgments, requiring more description. We’ll discuss these last three trumpets over the coming weeks.

My translation of 8:13 betrays the fact that this verse is syntactically tricky. It requires a lot of smoothing over to make it read well in English, but I think we get the idea. John sees an single eagle in the sky. In the Old Testament, when an eagle is mentioned, it’s often in the context of judgment (Deuteronomy 28:49, Jeremiah 4:13, 48:40, and 49:22, for example). The eagle is the ultimate predator. It’s fast, strong, and able to lock onto its prey with devastating accuracy. The eagle here not only reminds us that the context here is judgment, but also that judgment will be swift, precise, intentional, and inevitable. Just as the eagle’s prey is doomed from the outset, so sinful mankind, outside of Christ, cannot avoid the judgment of God. We also noted the fact that the eagle is located high in the sky, or in mid-sky, while the locusts emerge from the abyss. As we’ll see, the fact the locusts come from the abyss helps us understand their demonic origin. The eagle in the sky, conversely, helps remind us that the judgment ultimately is in the hands of our heavenly Father.

The phrase “those dwelling upon the earth” has been used before in Revelation (3:10 and 6:10). From those contexts, we understand this phrase to refer to unbelievers.

A good amount of our time today was spent discussing the pre-tribulation rapture view, as expressed in books like the LEFT BEHIND series. I don’t hold to that perspective, and I think the same is true for a lot of people coming from a Reformed perspective. Our view of God’s sovereignty in salvation precludes any thought that people would have a “second chance” at salvation–indeed, any perspective that puts salvation into the hands of man and not God is anathema to the Reformed understanding. More importantly, however, my reading of Scripture, and my understanding of Scripture as God’s eternal word, and the sole basis for my understanding of Scripture itself as well as the world around me, doesn’t draw me to that viewpoint. This is why our study of Revelation constantly appeals to the Old Testament, and what John’s audience would have understood, when interpreting the text. Some may want to see the locusts of the fifth trumpet as Apache helicopters, but that thought would never have crossed the minds of Revelation’s first audience.

But we need to bear in mind that Christians in good standing can disagree on these things. There are many godly people who believe in a pre-tribulation rapture. Some take this view to an extreme such that it becomes their gospel, and that’s wrong. But most don’t; they get on with the Lord’s work, and only talk about such things as the occasion arises. Since Revelation is God’s word, it is important, and we need to study it, and understand it as far as the Lord gives us the grace to do so. However, we mustn’t treat Revelation as a book of things to watch for so we can be ready for the end. As in the parable of the ten virgins, we need to be about the Lord’s work now. The time to be prepared for the Lord’s return is not whenever we think the first trumpet’s about to sound. It’s now. And if we stay faithful to the Lord, we need not be concerned about the timing of his return. We can simply pray, “Come quickly!”

Next time, the fifth trumpet!