Sunday School Notes: Revelation 11:18-19

¹⁸ “…And the nations were angry, but Your anger came and the time for the dead to be judged, and to give the reward to Your servants, the prophets, and to the saints, and to those who fear Your name, the small and the great, and to destroy those who destroy the earth.” ¹⁹ And the temple of God which is in heaven was opened and the Ark of His covenant was seen in His temple, and there were lightnings and noises and thunders and an earthquake and a great hail.

We started verse 18 last time, noting the echoes of Psalm 2:5, the connections with Revelation 6:16-17, and the mentions of the judgment of the dead in Daniel 12:1-2 and coming up in Revelation 20:12. For more about this, see the discussion in last week’s notes.

This week, we picked up on the latter half of verse 18, talking about the reward given to “Your servants, the prophets, and to the saints, and to those who fear your name.” Are these separate groups within the church: prophets, saints, servants, and so on–or maybe offices, or references to specific giftings? Some might see this verse as referring to specially designated people within the body of Christ, but I’m not convinced. Aren’t all Christians servants, saints, and those who fear the name of the Lord? Even “prophet” could refer to all Christians. Consider the Two Witnesses. John referred to them as having a prophetic ministry, and yet they were representative of the entire church (they were “two lamp stands”). Insofar as Christian proclaim the truth of God from Scripture, they are, in a sense, exercising a prophetic ministry. After all, that’s essentially what the Old Testament prophets did: speak the word of God. And that word might be encouragement, or even rebuke or judgment. As 2 Timothy 3:16 reminds us, God’s word is profitable for teaching, reproving, correcting, and training in righteousness.

Another way to look at these roles is to see “Your servants, the prophets” as a reference to the Old Testament saints (the same phrase was used back in 10:7 talking about the fulfillment of what God had told “His servants, the prophets” in times past). “The saints” would then, perhaps, be a reference to the New Testament church, of which the Old Testament saints are a part, and hence the concluding phrase: “to those who fear your name.” In other words, the reward is for Old Testament believers, New Testament believers, indeed, for all who fear the name of the Lord, from the least to the greatest.

That reward is, of course, salvation in its fullest. The seven letters in chapters 2 and 3 laid out a number of promises for those who overcome, that is, the Christians who don’t lose faith but endure to the end. They will:

• Eat of the tree of life
• Be given the crown of life
• Receive “hidden manna” and a new stone with a new name on it
• Have authority over the nations and be given the morning star
• Be clothed in white
• Have their names in the Book of Life
• Be confessed before the Father
• Be made a pillar in the temple of God
• Have the name of God, the city of God, and the new name of Jesus written on them
• Share a throne with Jesus

This is quite an impressive list. One that should encourage and embolden the heart of every believer.

Verse 18 concludes by saying that the Lord will destroy the destroyers of the earth. Just as His wrath was poured out on the angry, so His destroying hand will be against the destroyers. This sounds like a reference to Jeremiah 51:25, where the prophet announces the judgment of Babylon (“the great city” in Revelation). “The earth” here is not a reference to the “earth dwellers,” which are unbelievers, but is, perhaps, intended to mean all that God has made, including His people. Some want to take “earth” here (gês in the Greek) to mean “land” (a legitimate translation), and say it’s talking about Israel. The language is poetic, so we can’t take the words too literally, though if we understand “Israel” in the New Testament sense, i.e., the church, then that might have merit. It would be out of place, I think, for God to suddenly be saying His wrath is only against those who destroy ethnic Jews. It’s quite plain that God’s judgment will fall upon those who destroy His people, Jew or Gentile.

The heavenly song finishes, but then there’s a new vision. John sees God’s temple opening to reveal the Ark of the Covenant. This is followed by lightening, rumbles, thunder, an earthquake and hail. Why does John suddenly see the Ark of the Covenant here? What’s the significance?

To answer that, we need to understand the role of the Ark of the Covenant to Israel. It signified the presence of the Lord in the midst of His people. That’s why it resided in the Holy of Holies, the innermost place of the Tabernacle, and then Solomon’s Temple. In the days of the Tabernacle, the Levites would carry it from place to place as Israel crossed the wilderness to Canaan.

We’ve already made reference to Joshua 6, and the story of the fall of Jericho. That story is particularly poignant here, with its seven trumpets sounding out judgment against the godless people of the city. If we consider the part played by the Ark in verses 8-16, I think we get a sense of why John might see the Ark at this point in Revelation. Israel marches around the city carrying the Ark. God is with them as they sound the trumpet, proclaiming God’s imminent judgment. And when judgment comes, God is with His people, symbolized by the Ark carried as the wall crumbles and Israel marches on the city. Remember, the Ark contained the stone tablets of the Ten Commandments, the Law, further emphasizing God’s righteous judgment.

During the Babylonian captivity, starting around 586 BC, the Ark of the Covenant was lost. There is no record of what happened to it. In 2 Maccabees, a book not considered Scripture, but often appealed to for historical information, the author says that Jeremiah hid the Ark in a cave. The problem with this is that there is no mention of it ever being recovered. There was no Ark in Herod’s Temple, the Second Temple, which was the one destroyed in 70 AD. Also, Jeremiah 3:18 indicates that the Ark will one day no longer be relevant to God’s people. They won’t look for it, rather they will seek the presence of God in Jerusalem, among His people.

So what we have in Revelation 11:19 is God in the midst of His people at a time when judgment is about to fall. Note that in 11:1, John was told to measure the temple of God. We understood the temple there to be a reference to God’s people, speaking of their protection. Here, at the end of chapter 11, we have the temple again representing God’s people, with the Ark inside: God in the midst of the church. We should also take note of the fact that when the temple is open, John can see the Ark of the Covenant. In the physical temple, there was a veil covering the Holy of Holies. In John’s vision, there is no veil. We have direct access to the Ark.

There were no chapter and verse divisions when John originally wrote Revelation, but there seems to be a natural “bookending” of 11:1 and 11:19, starting and ending with a vision of the temple. This section starts by affirming God’s spiritual protection of His people, and it ends by reminding them that whatever else is happening in terms of judgment and cosmic turmoil, He is with them, in their midst.

We should be familiar with the lightnings, thunders, and earthquakes that form the language of judgment in Revelation (see also 4:5, and 8:5). This is The End. And yet there are another eleven chapters! Clearly, the Lord has not finished showing John, or us, all we need to see…

Our Sunday School class is taking a break for the Summer, so there won’t be any notes until the beginning of September. But Lord willing, we’ll pick up with Revelation 12 at that time.