Sunday School Notes: Revelation 16:17-21
17 And the seventh [angel] poured out his bowl upon [or “into”] the air, and a loud voice went out from the temple, from the throne, saying, “It is done.” 18 And there were lightnings and noises and thunders, and there was an earthquake such as has not happened since man came about upon the Earth; in this way [it was] such a great earthquake. 19 And the great city was [divided] into three parts, and the cities of the nations fell. And Babylon the Great was remembered before God to give to her the cup of the wine of His fierce wrath. 20 And every island fled and mountains were not found. 21 And large hail weighing about a talent falls from heaven upon men, and the men blasphemed God out of the plague of hail because the plague is so very great.
Reminder: My translation above is as literal as I can make it while still sort-of making sense. I provide my own translation a) to try to bring out some features of the Greek that might otherwise get lost in translation (e.g., shifting verb tenses); b) because most major translations are copyright-protected and I would probably get in trouble for posting the entire text of Revelation from the ESV–even if I’m doing it over the course of three-plus years!
So we come to the seventh and final bowl on the last week of our Sunday School semester. And we actually managed to get through the entire passage!! 🙂 As with the seventh seal and the seventh trumpet, this bowl depicts The End–the final consummation of all things, when God brings final judgment on the world. The battle of “Armageddon” we talked about last time leads up to this point, and this is where it all ends. World history is heading to this moment, and the Lord is orchestrating every second. I know there are another six chapters to go. We’ll see how this all fits together in due course.
The seventh angel pours out his bowl into the air. This seems a little odd since the previous bowls have been poured out into rivers, the earth, the beast’s throne–things you can see (even if they are symbols). What’s the significance of the air for this final judgment? In Ephesians 2:2, Paul reminds the Ephesian church how they were dead in their trespasses and sins. And they walked in these according to the age of this world, the ruler of the authority of the air, the spirit of the one now working in the sons of disobedience. Their rebellion was a result of their following after the spiritual power at the root of all godlessness and disobedience (i.e., Satan). If you recall Revelation 9:2, there John saw the sun and air darkened from the smoke coming from the abyss, that same abyss from whence the demonic locusts came. The air is used, therefore, as a symbol of the Satanic realm. Air is not localized. It is everywhere and all-pervasive, which is why it is such a good picture for the influence of evil in this world.
John is reminding us here that the final judgment is not simply about bringing just punishment to the earth-dwellers. It’s not even solely about toppling worldly governments and destroying the “beast” and all his power. It about bringing judgment on all creation and, most significantly, bringing judgment on the ruler of all evil spiritual authorities. To put it in terms of Revelation symbolism, it’s not just a judgment against the beast and the false prophet; it’s against the dragon too. This is spiritual as well as physical. And, as Paul reminds us in Ephesians 6, this is a spiritual battle that has been raging for centuries. Millennia. And will continue until that last day.
The voice from the temple is undoubtedly the Lord’s voice: “It is done!” (gegonen in the Greek). It has happened. It has taken place. A one-word summation of what was said about the bowls in 15:1: in them, the wrath of God is completed. With the seventh bowl, the last of God’s wrath is poured out. When the dregs of God’s wrath drip from this bowl, God’s judgment is completed.
This end of all judgments is illustrated with broad and familiar symbols: lightning, thunder, “noise”, and earthquakes. We see these same phenomena in Exodus 19:16-18 when the Lord descends on Mount Sinai before the people of Israel. They were also present at the throne room scene in Revelation 4:5 coming from the throne itself. These are symbolic of theophany, God’s presence. But we also saw them at the end of the seventh seal and the seventh trumpet (8:5 and 11:19), so the association with judgment is also very clear. And the fact thunder, lightning, earthquakes, and “noise” appear with the seventh seal, trumpet, and bowl is, I believe significant. I think this underscores the fact that these are not consecutive events, but, in some way, parallel, all three culminating with the same last event: The End.
John then says something that strikes me as unusual with regard to the earthquake, which is why it deserves our attention: “Such as has not happened since man came about upon the Earth.” He’s saying this is the greatest earthquake in recorded history. The earthquake to end all earthquakes–literally! Why say it in this way? Because it echoes Daniel 12:1, in which Daniel foretells the coming of Michael (see Revelation 12:2). He says that at the end there will be “a time of trouble such as never has been seen since there was a nation till that time.” What John is talking about here in Revelation is the fulfillment of Daniel 12:2. But the link doesn’t end there. Daniel’s use of the phrase echoes Exodus 9:18 and 24, speaking of the plague of hail. We’ve already talked about the links between Revelation and Exodus, as well as Daniel. Revelation is the final fulfillment of God’s dealings with His people as illustrated by the Exodus event. It is also the final fulfillment of all God’s prophecies to His people, as seen particularly in Daniel. This is why Revelation is so important to our understanding of Scripture: through Revelation we see Genesis to Jude through the eyes of the gospel.
Back in 11:8, we established that “the great city” couldn’t be Jerusalem because of the negative connotation (the text says it is, spiritually, “Sidon”). In 14:8, Babylon was called “the great,” harking back to Daniel 4:30 and Nebuchadnezzar’s humiliation. Also, in Revelation 17:18 and throughout chapter 18 Babylon is called “the great city.” So this term is, we believe, applied to Babylon, which is symbolic of the center of evil upon the Earth. But what about the city being “split in three“? What’s the significance of three, as opposed to two? Or four? Some suggest this is a reference to Zechariah 14 and the three sections of Jerusalem. But we’ve already said that this city is not Jerusalem, and Jerusalem in that Zechariah passage is talked about in positive terms. Indeed, Jerusalem is said to be preserved from being destroyed. Hardly the fate of “the great city” here. The splitting of the city is most likely a result of this extraordinary earthquake, so it’s an act of judgment. Three possible meanings occurred to us:
- It’s symbolizes God’s judgment against the unholy trinity (the dragon, the beast, and the false prophet)
- Like the “thirds” we encountered during the trumpet judgments, this is a partial judgment against Babylon with the rest to follow soon after
- It’s not really significant apart from emphasizing the devastation caused to the city by the earthquake. It wasn’t just torn in two, but in three.
I lean toward the first and last of these, though I’m not sure we have enough information to be dogmatic.
While we don’t accept the link between Zechariah 14 and “the great city,” the Zechariah passage does have a role to play here since it speaks of end-times events. There’s a gathering of the nations against Jerusalem (vv. 2-3); Mount Olives is split (vv. 4-5); there are strange phenomena (vv. 6-7); and there are plagues (vv. 12-15).
But the judgment doesn’t end with “the great city.” John tells us that the cities of the nations fell also. Revelation 14:8 says that all the nations drank from the passion of Babylon’s immorality, a fact we’ll see fleshed out further in the coming chapters. So with Babylon’s fall comes the fall of all those cities that looked up to and depended upon her. They drank from Babylon’s cup and benefited from her power and wealth.
But God remembers Babylon “the great.” In the context of a church persecuted by the state (e.g., John’s churches under Roman authority), it might seem as if the Lord has forgotten their plight. Maybe the Lord is not able or willing to bring judgment against such a powerful force in the world? But God doesn’t forget. He will bring an end to that underlying secular system that opposes Him and seeks to destroy His people. He will make her drink from the cup of His wrath, and it will not be a pleasurable experience.
John then sees the islands fleeing and the mountains suddenly lost. Again, this is cataclysm language that brings to mind 6:14, when during the sixth seal, “every mountain and island was removed from its place.” We also look forward to 20:11, where John will see the great white throne and the One seated on it. Earth and sky will flee from Him because there is no place for them. Perhaps most pointedly, the depiction of the fall of Babylon in 18:21, of which this passage is a very high-level overview, says that the city will be thrown down and “will be found no more.” The fact that this passage connects with the sixth seal, however, should not be passed over lightly. The sixth seal is a prelude to the seventh, which is the Lord’s return. The theme of the seventh bowl is the final judgment, at the end of which the Lord returns for His people. This vision takes in the terror of the sixth seal and couples it with the glory of the seventh seal and the seventh trumpet, but with more detail.
We mentioned the Exodus plague of hail earlier, and now we see the apocalyptic version of that as hailstones fall from the sky. It’s interesting to note that the Exodus plague of hail was the seventh of the plagues. And here, hail is part of the seventh bowl. I struggle to believe that’s a coincidence. Outside of Exodus, we see hail featured in God’s judgment (e.g., Isaiah 28:2, 17; Haggai 2:17; Ezekiel 13:11, 13). We talked a bit about the nature of hail and how destructive it can be, even the way we commonly experience it today. John says that these hailstones weighed “about a talent.” That’s somewhere between 45 and 130 pounds. The ESV averages this to 100 pounds. That’s very heavy hail. And when you consider it’s falling from the sky, that’s very lethal hail. One hailstone that size dropping from a great height could easily kill a person. This furthers the Exodus link since Exodus 9:18 describes that hail as “heavy” or “great” (Hebrew: bārād kābēd; Greek: chalazan pollēn sphodra). John provides the weight detail so we understand that this is no normal hail storm. Indeed, it’s perhaps even more devastating than the Egyptian plague. This is hail that will destroy. The kind of judgment hail you would expect as part of the final judgment. Also, hail falls from “the air,” so it’s another judgment against the ruler of the air, Satan.
Perhaps most important with regard to the hail is the reaction of the earth-dwellers. Do they recognize the hand of God and turn to Him? Are they convicted of their sin which brings this judgment upon them? Does the death and devastation they see lead them to Jesus? No. Rather, the text says they “curse God.” They don’t just curse; God is the object of their cursing. This implies they recognize who’s behind the hail, but instead of falling down before the One who is able to create such hail, they curse Him. If nothing else graphically illustrates why these people are worthy of judgment, this does. They are so insistent on their rebellion against their Creator, the earth-dwellers refuse to bend the knee to the Lord, even when His power and authority is so clearly on display.
Might there be an end-times hailstorm like this, physically? It’s possible. As I’ve said before, I leave open the possibility that any and/or all of the images in Revelation that I understand to be symbolic the Lord could manifest physically. He is free to conduct judgment the way He deems. Whether or not we will one day see 100-pound hailstones falling from the sky, we understand the spiritual significance of them. God is judging the Earth and the spiritual forces that work to draw people away from the gospel. One day both world leaders and the rulers of the air will be judged. And that judgment will be devastating, total, and final.
But we mustn’t forget that those who are in Christ, the “heaven-dwellers,” are eternal protected from the spiritual destruction God will mete out upon these unrepentant people. We may suffer physically, but this is not our kingdom and it is not our home. God has reserved a place for us with Him thanks to the shed blood of the Lamb who was slain for his people, a people that spans every tribe, tongue, people, and nation throughout the whole world.
The Revelation study will pick up again, Lord willing, around the beginning of January 2019 with Chapter 17.
