Chapter 7

We are now going to introduce chapter seven because when it asks, “who is able to stand? ”in the last phrase in chapter six, the answer is found in the greatest period of evangelism the world will ever know and which will occur in the seven years of the Tribulation. So great is that period of evangelism that there will be angels evangelising toward the end of it.

We have already studied Hades and how Apollyon, second only to Satan, will make a great invasion from the abyss, and therefore the tremendous necessity in all of the concentrated demonism of the Tribulation for a clear presentation of the gospel. So we now note the concepts related to the subject at hand which is: “Who is able to stand?” The Tribulation will be a time of great harvesting of souls, many millions of people will actually believe in the Lord Jesus Christ. Of course, in every dispensation and in every period of history in every area, there must be evangelism; it is of utmost necessity.

There are three categories of evangelism that have occurred since the beginning of man’s sinfulness and the need for evangelism. First of all there is personal evangelism which is conducted by all of those who are believers in the Lord Jesus Christ, or should be. Secondly, there is evangelism through spiritual gift which is the function of the gift of evangelism, especially in this dispensation where it is a very necessary function. Thirdly, there is national evangelism through the client nation, which is missionary activity.

Personal evangelism in the scripture is often categorised as witnessing. It is the function of the individuals in the royal family in communicating the gospel of the Lord Jesus Christ to those who have not accepted Christ as saviour. It is the one field of evangelism open to all believers. Witnessing is personal evangelism, it is the function apart from the gift of evangelism and from missionary activity or client nation evangelism. The threefold characteristics of witnessing are found in 1 Thessalonians 1:4-5, “Knowing, brethren beloved by God, for our gospel did not come to you in word only [the verbal presentation of the gospel, person to person, individual to individual], but also in the power of the Holy Spirit,” there is no presentation of the gospel unless the believer involved is residing and functioning inside of the divine dynasphere, God’s game for the Church Age and the Christian way of life. So there must be the filling of the Spirit for personal evangelism. There must be an understanding of the subject, therefore perception and application of doctrine, momentum in the spiritual life. The more effective the spiritual growth the more effective the witnessing for Christ in personal evangelism, the more effective the function of the gift of evangelism, and the more effective the function of missionary activity or client nation evangelism. All motivation for evangelism must come from gate five of the divine dynasphere which, of course, is occupation with the person of Jesus Christ at its peak but begins as love of God.

“and full conviction,” that is the Holy Spirit as the sovereign executive of witnessing, “just as you know what kind of men we became among you for your sake.” There is the witness of the Spirit, there is the verbal witness of the individual person who is evangelising, and there is the witness of the life. The three are all mentioned in verse 5.

The Holy Spirit is the sovereign executive of all forms of evangelism. Whether personal evangelism or the evangelism of the spiritual gift or the evangelism of a client nation, it is the ministry of God the Holy Spirit which is most important. The unbeliever is minus a human spirit, therefore he has no frame of reference for the gospel. The gospel is spiritual phenomenon. The unbeliever has a human soul and that soul is located inside of the human body. Therefore the unbeliever is said to be dichotomous, but there is no way that a human soul with its two frontal lobes can comprehend the information of the gospel. Therefore, God the Holy Spirit acts as a human spirit when the gospel is presented to the unbeliever.

In John 16:8-11 we have the basic areas in which God the Holy Spirit makes clear the issue of the gospel, “And he [the Holy Spirit], when he comes, will convince the world concerning [three things] sin, righteousness, and judgement [the three aspects by which the gospel is presented in all three categories].”

Immediately when you say “sin” you think of personal sin, and you think the evangelist should stand up there and keep talking about personal sins. Not at all. The only sin which is the issue in evangelism is not the fact that we have personally sinned. That is not an issue in personal evangelism, that is an issue in condemnation. We are sinners; we are sinners by imputation; we are sinners by personal action; we are sinners by the function of the old sin nature. But that isn’t the issue because that was solved on the cross when Christ took our place and was judged for our sins. There is only one sin which God the Holy Spirit uses as an issue in evangelism: “concerning sin because they believe not in me.”

Ultimately, the only sin which condemns man is rejection of the Lord Jesus Christ. This is, of course, dramatised by the last judgement when personal sins are not even mentioned. The reason that personal sins are never mentioned at the last judgement is because all personal sins were imputed to Christ on the cross and judged. And it is only when there is rejection of Christ, negative volition toward the gospel or at God-consciousness, that results in the second resurrection, the great white throne judgement, and being cast into the lake of fire. Sins are never mentioned at the last judgement, only human good as a demonstration of the fact that none of us have a righteousness acceptable to God. The only righteousness that is acceptable is what is imputed to us at the moment we believe in Christ.

“Concerning righteousness because I go to my Father and you no longer see me.” While Jesus Christ is ascended and is seated at the right hand of the Father where He received His third royal patent, and we no longer see Him, we do receive at the moment of salvation the imputed righteousness of God the Father, one half of His holiness, the other half being His justice, so that at the moment of salvation a grace pipeline is established between the righteousness of God and the justice of God. At the same time, as we have noted, every one of us who have believed in this dispensation, are entered into union with Christ through the baptism of the Spirit, and therefore we have the righteousness of Christ. As royal family we have a double portion: the imputation of God the Father’s righteousness to us the moment we believe, and we share the righteousness of Christ since we are entered into union with Him at the moment of eternal salvation. The issue in salvation is that if we are going to live with God forever we must be as good as God is. That is impossible, and therefore imputed to us at the moment we believe in Christ is the righteousness of God.

“Concerning judgement because the ruler of this world has been judged.” When Christ bore our sins in His own body on the tree it was not only our so great salvation but it was the strategic victory of the angelic conflict.

In 1 Corinthians 2:14 evangelism is in focus: “But the soulish man [the unbeliever] does not accept the things of the Spirit of God because they are foolishness to him, for he is not able to obtain knowledge of the gospel because they are discerned from the source of the human spirit,” and since the unbeliever has no human spirit he cannot understand the gospel.

The third category is client nation evangelism, one of the only effective world-wide systems of evangelism, for it is the function of the missionary going to the various countries of the world, and not only the presentation of the gospel but the entire modus operandi of indigenous missionary activity.

The principle behind all of this: whether it is the one with the gift of evangelism, whether it is personal witnessing, whether it is a missionary, there must be the total reliance upon the ministry of the Holy Spirit, therefore a clear presentation of the gospel is required. Pertinent Bible doctrine or the gospel is the weapon of witnessing. The gospel of the power of God to salvation, Romans 1:16, not our personalities, no our human dynamics, not even the cleverness or the ability with which we present it; it is the gospel which is the power of God with reference to salvation, “to everyone who believes.” First of all “to the Jew” because he was the client nation of the past, “and also to the Gentile” because at the present time this is the “times of the Gentiles” and only Gentile nations are client nations to God. 1 Corinthians 1:18 adds: “For the word of the cross is to them that perish foolishness, but to us who are saved it is the power of God.” So the power is in the Word; the power is in the gospel. The Bible is the absolute norm for truth according to 2 Peter 1:12-21; the Bible is the source of the gospel, Luke 16:28-31; 1 Corinthians 15:3,4; the Bible is the mind of Christ, 1 Corinthians 2:16; the Bible is divine power, Hebrews 4:12; the Bible never returns void, Isaiah 55:1; the Bible endures forever, Luke 21:33; 1 Peter 1:25.

The believer priest is the agent in witnessing under category one, and witnessing is the responsibility, therefore, of every member of the royal family under the power of the Spirit. There is the witness of the life, 2 Corinthians 3:3; 6:3; there is the witness of the lips in 2 Corinthians 5:14-21.

Regardless of the category it is the knowledge of pertinent doctrine which is necessary for the effective communication of the Word, because the believer must witness in the power of the Spirit, he must make the issue clear, he must exclude every system of human persuasiveness and salesmanship so as not to create distraction and false issues. The believer must understand both Christology and soteriology, especially redemption, reconciliation, propitiation, imputation, justification, atonement; these are all pertinent to the saving work of Christ on the cross. The believer’s ability to witness depends on his emphasis on the gospel, especially the doctrine of reconciliation as presented in Ephesians 2:14-17. The correct and accurate information from Bible doctrine is always the power involved in the presentation, and regardless of the category, whether it is an individual believer witnessing, whether it is an evangelist using his spiritual gift before a group, or whether it is a missionary in some foreign country the point is that all of us have this responsibility, Romans 1:14-16. Believers must have assurance with regard to eternal security for the stability of this presentation. Therefore not to be excluded is the doctrine of eternal security so that when you witness as an individual, when the evangelist stands before a group of people and speaks, or when the missionary communicates the gospel in some foreign country, they all realise that what they are presenting can never be changed; and that those who are their listeners, if they believe in Christ they have eternal salvation and they cannot lose that salvation through any failure on their part on any failure on the part of anyone else. Eternal security is a major issue in the presentation of the gospel and the confidence and the motivation that comes from telling people about Christ is the confidence that when they believe in Christ, when they personally receive Him as saviour, there is nothing that can cancel it, there is no way that they can lose their salvation.

Witnessing, therefore, is the function of the royal ambassadorship because, first of all the motivation comes from our royal priesthood. Everyone of us as believers is a priest; everyone of us is an ambassador. The function of our royal priesthood is directed toward God; the function of our royal ambassadorship is directed toward man. We are motivated by love of God to communicate the gospel as individual believers, as evangelists, as missionaries. All of us have the responsibility. This is emphasised in 2 Corinthians 5:18-20. The ministry of reconciliation belongs to these three categories: witnessing, the evangelist, the missionary.

It is our responsibility to provide the gospel information but to leave the results in the hands of God the Holy Spirit. Therefore we must avoid gimmicks which confuse the issue such as emotional begging, public invitations, raising hands, walking aisles, jumping through psychological hoops. They are all disastrous in the long run because they give a concept of legalism which when people do believe in Christ they never shed the legalism, they must be doing something rather than God doing something for us.

Common grace is God the Holy Spirit acting as a human spirit to make the information of the gospel lucid and perspicuous. Efficacious grace is the ministry of God the Holy Spirit in the exhale of faith in Jesus Christ.

A prerequisite, then, for the presentation of the gospel is knowledge of the pertinent doctrine. Effectiveness of this depends on the ministry of God the Holy Spirit. The responsibility for communication is in three categories as noted. The dynamics of communication depends upon motivation, mental attitude; in other words, life inside the divine dynasphere. Clarity of communication depends on the believer’s accurate understanding of the two deaths of Christ on the cross plus the fact that there was a judgement. Christ did not die physically for our sins. It does say that Christ died for our sins, and that is the imputation of all personal sins to Christ on the cross. That is why at the moment of physical birth, the first time we were born, there was imputed to us the sin of Adam. Adam’s original sin was imputed to our genetically-formed old sin nature and we were born spiritually dead. In the second birth, when we are born again, there is imputed to us eternal life; there is imputed to us the righteousness of God. if we are going to live with God forever and ever we must have exactly the same righteousness He has. We must have His life — eternal life. So there are two imputations: eternal life and the righteousness of God. These imputations leave one thing out: personal sin. Our personal sins are never imputed to us for judgement, our personal sins instead were imputed to Christ on the cross. They were judged at that point and that is a spiritual death, a spiritual death which culminated with our Lord speaking: “It is finished.”

There are some postulates we should note with regard to evangelism. These things will be observed in the Tribulation as well.

First we must always avoid argumentation in the presentation of the gospel. We are not trying to win a debate, we are trying to present Jesus Christ for every soul’s salvation. The responsibility, whether and individual believer, an evangelist or a missionary is to disseminate information, not to argue over its validity.

Secondly we should never be side-tracked by false issues: Is the Bible the Word of God? What about people who have never heard the gospel? These are examples of things that are not an issue in the presentation of the gospel.

Thirdly, we should deal in personal witnessing with the individual alone where possible, recognising his privacy. The evangelist must deal with the individual under the principle of privacy and therefore avoid those gimmicks like trying to get some public confirmation by the raising of hands. That becomes a false issue and produces embarrassment as an issue rather than Christ.

Fourthly, in any presentation of the gospel on the part of an individual believer, on the part of an evangelist, on the part of a missionary, there is always the danger of getting into a rut: using the single approach every time because it worked once before. Different approaches in the presentation of the gospel are necessary for different people and flexibility is one of the greatest issues in evangelism.

Fifth, there should be the avoidance of any false concept that you must speak to a certain number of people every day about Christ in personal witnessing, or that the evangelist must have a large audience, or that the missionary must “beat the bushes” constantly for converts. There is the need to train indigenous people in missionary work among their own people.

Motivation for evangelism must come from spiritual growth, from doctrine resident in the soul, from residence in the divine dynasphere; not human pressure, not spiritual bullying, and not approbation lust. Avoid, therefore, anything in the field of arrogance. Arrogance is the greatest enemy of Christianity but it is especially the greatest enemy of all of us. And we must also avoid judging other believers for their apparent failure to witness. This is a matter between the individual and the Lord, and such judging and maligning brings divine discipline upon yourself and it does not effect any way the evangelism of others.

The outline of chapter seven

In the first eight verses we are going to see the evangelists and missionaries of the Tribulation.

In verses nine through fourteen we are going to see the results of their evangelism.

In verses fifteen through seventeen we are going to see what happens to these people who are martyred. Many of the converts are going to be martyred for the faith.

The evangelists of the Tribulation — verses 1-8.

The results of Tribulational evangelism — verses 9-14.

The interim blessing of Tribulational martyrs — verses 15-17.

The judgement of the pur sui vant messengers is mentioned in verse one. We do not start with evangelism, we start with historical trends; for all evangelism, all missionary activity depends upon the historical trend of the time in which the events occur. Historical trends have a great influence on missionary activity, on evangelism, and on personal witnessing.

Verse 1, we begin with the simple prepositional phrase meta plus the accusative neuter from the immediate demonstrative o(utoj, “after these things.” The opening of the seventh seal of the Doomsday book is postponed. We have the first six seals only in chapter six and we will not get the seventh seal of historical trends until chapter eight, verse one, in order to answer the question which was given at the end of Revelation 6:17, “who is able to stand?”

Chapter seven answers the question. The answer, of course, is obvious. Only the believer can stand. But there is a problem there. At the moment of the Rapture of the Church which terminates the Church Age and begins the Tribulational age, at that moment there are no believers on the earth for all believers went up with the resurrection of the Church, 1 Thessalonians 4:13-17. So there are no believers on the earth the moment after the Rapture of the Church. So the question is: from where is the origin of believers in the Tribulation. If only a believer can stand, where are the believers in the Tribulation? Hence, the necessity of explaining how people came to believe in the Lord Jesus Christ during the Tribulation.

Evangelism in all three categories continues and thrives in time of historical disaster, and that is one of the first principles we will, learn in this chapter. Historical disaster is opportunity. Most people regard historical disaster with great trepidation but it is a time of opportunity for personal witnessing, it is a time of great opportunity for evangelism, it is a time of great opportunity for missionary activity. Our story in chapter seven is the story of evangelism in one of the most disruptive periods of history, one of the eras of history of unrestrained historical disaster. Therefore, the seventh chapter of Revelation is a parenthesis between the breaking of the sixth seal and the seventh seal in the Doomsday book. The purpose of the parenthesis, then, is to answer the question about who is able to stand. Only believers in Christ are able to stand in time of great historical disasters.

With this, “After these things [the breaking of the first six seals].” We have a verb, the aorist active indicative of o(raw meaning that John is now going to get a good glimpse of history. This is future history; this is the Tribulation. The constative aorist tense contemplates the action of the verb in its entirety. It refers to evangelism as a fact or action extended over the entire period of the Tribulation. Furthermore, we have all three categories of evangelism used. The active voice of o(raw: John produces the action of the verb by observing the pattern of evangelism in the Tribulation. The indicative mood is declarative for the reality of evangelism during the entire course of the Tribulation. “After these things I saw four angels.” What these angels are doing, what their responsibility is, how they function, will be answered in the phrases that follow.

Anyone who is a herald is in the field of nobility as far as the elect angels are concerned. “I saw four angels.” These are pur sui vant messengers who have charge of certain natural forces used by God to judge segments of the human race with historical disaster. Therefore we find next their function in the perfect active participle of the verb i(stemi, and here it means to stand ready or to be on standby alert. In its transitive sense it means to put, to place, to set, to establish, to confirm, to make valid. In the intransitive use of the verb to stand still, to stop, to stand firm, to hold one’s ground, to be alert, to be ready. So we translate: “After these things [the breaking open of the first six seals of the Doomsday book] I saw four [pur sui vant] angels standing ready.” Actually, they are on what we would call red alert to administer divine judgement.

With this we have where they are going to do it. Where are they standing ready? They are called “the four corners of the earth.” This is a prepositional phrase e)pi plus the accusative of the adjective numeral tessarej, plus the genitive of gh, and then one other word, gwnia for “corners.” This is correctly translated “at the four corners of the earth.” And what are they doing? They are said under the present active participle of the verb kratew to be restraining. They are on red alert to release but they are restraining the winds at this moment. So we have kratew, in the present tense, a descriptive present, to indicate what is now going on. The active voice: these pur sui vant angels produce the action of the verb in the restraint of divine judgement until ordered to administer that category of judgement but through the chain of command, through the cherub who acts as the pur sui vant officer.

With this we find out where they are on red alert. They are at the four corners of the earth and under the accusative plural direct object we have again the word “four” and this time we have the noun a)nemoj, and this is fascinating because this is one of three great weather makers on planet earth, “restraining the four winds of the earth.” Then we have i(na introducing a purpose clause, “in order that.” There is a purpose for this. Then we have our subject, the nominative singular subject a)nemoj again and with it the negative mh, and it is translated “in order that no wind.” Then the present active subjunctive of the verb pnew, “might blow,” “in order that no wind might blow.” The present tense is a tendencial present for an action which might occur but at the moment is not taking place. The active voice: the subject is wind — hurricane, typhoon, tornado and other disastrous winds which produce bad weather and historical disaster. The subjunctive mood is a potential subjunctive implying a future reference qualified by the element of contingency, and the element of contingency means that it must come from what we have previously studied, the chariot of fire in which our Lord presides over the administration of these judgements. The rest of it is very simple: “blowing over land or sea or tree.”

Corrected translation: “After these things I saw four [pur sui vant] angels standing on red alert at the four corners of the earth, restraining the four winds [wind cells] of the earth in order that no wind should blow on the land, or on the sea, or against any tree.”

The angelic restraint of the weather machine

1. Revelation 7:1 introduces a point of doctrine which explains certain natural disasters on planet earth in terms of divine judgement.

2. It also introduces the concept of certain elect angels from the college of heralds, officers and messengers, as the restrainers of natural disasters from turbulent weather.

3. Angelic restraint cannot be understood here apart from a summary of how the world’s weather machine operates.

The sun is the ultimate source of the energy which powers the earth. Solar energy warms our planet and atmosphere. The sun not only warms the atmosphere and the planet but it also evaporates ocean water, heating it into vapour, and moving it somewhere else where precipitation occurs. Because the sun warms the earth unequally, i.e. the tropics more than the polar zones, solar energy stirs the atmosphere into motion producing a giant weather machine. The warning system is called radiation. Incoming solar radiation penetrates the atmosphere after being filtered and some thirty per cent is reflected back to space by clouds, by ice, and by water. Another twenty per cent is absorbed by air, by water, by vapour, ozone, clouds, dust, air molecules. The remaining fifty per cent is absorbed at the earth’s surface, heating the earth and the atmosphere unequally, and therefore triggering global circulation of air and ocean currents. There is where we get weather. The grace of God to humanity is noted in the fact that the incoming radiation from the sun is balanced by heat radiating back into space from the earth. Water vapour and carbon dioxide in the atmosphere intercepts some of this heat outflow, raising the temperature of the earth and the lower atmosphere of the first heavens.

Air warmed in the tropics rises and moves toward the poles where it cools off and descends because of unequal temperatures. The rotation of the earth deflects these air currents in the cells of moving air. Three of these globe-girdling cells are found in each one of our hemispheres. There are actually twelve wind cells, three in each hemisphere or, as our passage says it, “each corner of the earth.” The corners of the earth refer to the hemispheres. In this sense the earth has four hemispheres and in each one there are three wind cells, and there is one pur sui vant angelic messenger in charge of each hemisphere — northern, southern, eastern, and western. The Biblical phrase, the, the “four corners of the earth” is taken from the four hemispheres of the earth. One pur sui vant angel guards a hemisphere to restrain that area from destructive weather forces until so ordered from the chariot of fire which we studied in Ezekiel chapters one and ten.

a. With each circuit of the earth rivers of air pass ultimately over oceans and continents where they climb mountain ranges, sink into flat land, and cross lakes.

b. The moving atmosphere adjusts, creating contrasting weather along each leg of the journey of the circulating air.

c. The repetition of this process forms diverse climates in various regions of the earth.

d. Just as the winds shift from day to day bringing spells of good weather and then bad, so they provide the variations in climate year after year in this stage of the angelic conflict known as human history.

Weather has always been a factor since the flood. The reason for it is that the earth is tilted. It was not tilted before the flood. The tilt since the flood causes seasons in certain parts of the earth. For example, in the western hemisphere in June the north pole tilts toward the sun, and we have summer in the northern hemisphere and winter envelops the southern latitudes below the equator. The barometer measures the atmospheric pressure. We have isobars which trace the movements of these circulating winds. Remember there are three systems in each hemisphere and weather forecasting could be classified as the empirical observation of changes on the earth’s surface caused by atmospheric conditions.

There is a definite connecting relationship between the function of the weather machine and history. In fact, history is one of the historical trends and, as a matter of fact, this is what our verse is saying. Right now weather is being restrained by angelic creatures and when this weather machine goes out of kilter then you have terrible disaster. When the pur sui vant angels are not administering divine judgement they are restraining weather and making it possible for normal weather to exist.

The “four winds” of verse 1 are wind cells, three to each of the four hemispheres, twelve wind cells in all in planet earth, “in order that no judgement [disciplinary wind] should blow on the land or on the sea, or against every tree.”

Verse 2, “Then I saw another angel.” No we find that there is an order, and that there is a system of authority, and these four angelic creatures who are in the nobility class called the college of heralds have an authority and rank over them.

We have the sequential use of the conjunction kai, translated “then.” We have the aorist active indicative of the verb o(raw, “Then I saw.” The constative aorist contemplates the action of the verb in its entirety. The active voice: the apostle John produces the action. The indicative mood is declarative representing the verbal action from the viewpoint of reality. Then we have the one in authority over those four angelic creatures with tremendous responsibility. They are restraining and therefore moving the wind cells in their proper circuits so that we get only normal weather, but we get abnormal weather by a simple flick of the wrist, they are always on alert. When they get a mandate from heaven from our Lord Jesus Christ all of that can change. There are no accidents in the Christian life, there are no accidents in history, every disaster that occurs in history has a very lucid explanation. It must be remembered that this is a divine decision, a fair decision, and that people are the products of their own decisions resulting in a divine decision.

“Then I saw another angel,” the pur sui vant officer of cherub rank in the college of heralds. Before they can do anything about natural disasters in the Tribulation there must first of all be a period for evangelism. There must be a principle, and the principle is always there: God is fair, always before judgement there is a grace period. Grace before judgement is the concept in this particular passage. The reason we do not go immediately to the sealing of the 144,000 evangelists is simply because there must be first of all an explanation. The explanation is a very simple one: no one has ever been overtaken by a natural disaster without a chance to change their mind, to believe in Christ, to get back to Bible doctrine. Whatever the cause of the disciplinary action from heaven, from the chariot of fire with its four wheels and …

These pur sui vant messengers in our passage are a part of the college of heralds, and while they are the lowest in the college of heralds in order of rank they are still officers compared to rank and file in the order of battle in the elect angelic army.

Verse 2 — “Then I saw another angel [pur sui vant officer, cherub by rank] coming up from the east.” Remember that all weather has to be related some way to the angels. What is not known, apart from the Word of God, is the function of the pur sui vant messengers. They control the weather machine.

Now we have our first relative clause, a present active participle from the verb e)xw, and it means to have, or to have and to hold, “who had.” The present tense of duration denotes what was begun in the past and continues into the present time, hence translated by the English perfect, “had.” The active voice: the pur sui vant officer commanding the weather machine produces the action of the verb. The participle is circumstantial, it is followed by the accusative singular direct object from the noun sfragij, “seal.” With it is the possessive genitive of qeoj, “the seal of God.” Then there is a present active participle of zaw, used here in the acsriptive sense of a participle, “the seal of the living God.” The relative clause belongs after the subject of the verse. Translation: “Then I saw another angel who had the seal of the living God.”

The seal is comparable to the wall of fire which protects believers during the historical disasters of the Tribulation. Certain believers are protected by the wall of fire and live to the end of the Tribulation. Others are permitted to have glorious testimony and then go into martyrdom, and from there into a tremendous interim happiness in heaven during the rest of the Tribulation. The seal also represents the spiritual gift of evangelism which functions under the principle of grace before judgement in the Tribulation.

Then we have the exercise of his command. He is in charge of the weather machine and there are four operators, one for each hemisphere, and he gives them a command. A connective conjunction kai introduces the command, “and,” plus the aorist active indicative of the word krazw which means here to shout, “and he shouted.” The constative aorist contemplates the action of the verb in its entirety. The active voice: the pur sui vant officer in command of the weather machine produces the action. The declarative indicative mood, a simple statement of fact. It was also given in a great voice or a loud voice, the instrumental singular of fwnh plus the instrumental singular of the adjective megaj. And we also note to whom it was given: the dative plural indirect object composed with three words, the generic use of the definite article toij, and with it we have tessarej, the adjective numeral “four,” and the noun a)ggeloj.

With this we have a dative plural from the relative pronoun o(j, “to whom was given,” the aorist passive indicative of the verb didomi. The culminative aorist tense views the authority of the pur sui vant messenger in its entirety but regards it from the viewpoint of existing results, the administration of divine judgement to the human race as a command function. God gives the overall policy and it is a command function in the college of heralds. The passive voice: the four pur sui vant messengers receive the action of the verb. The indicative mood is declarative.

Then we have an ellipsis, it demands a subject for the infinitive, “to whom was given authority to damage [injure],” the aorist active infinitive of a)dikew which means to injure or to damage, “the land and the sea.” The culminative aorist views the power or authority of these angelic creatures [elect angels] in its entirety but regards it from the viewpoint of existing results. They run the weather machine, they have the power to do great damage to the earth through the wind cells. The active voice: the pur sui vant messengers with this authority or power produce the action and this is the infinitive of intended result which fulfils a deliberate objective, hence a blending of purpose and result. It means to damage.

Translation of verse two: “Then I saw another angel [the pur sui vant officer] who had the seal of the living God coming up from the east: and shouting a command with a loud voice to the four pur sui vant angels, to those who were given authority or power to damage the land and the sea.”

We have previously noted that the angelic college of heralds is used for the administration of divine judgement of the human race. This is the primary function of the category of pur sui vant angels. We have also noted their functions and how they operate from the chariot of fire, the headquarters for judgement. In the Tribulation divine judgement is postponed only for a short time and that is for world-wide evangelism under the principle that grace always precedes judgement. There has never been a nation, a group of people, living in any geographical area of the world who did not have an opportunity of grace before judgement.

Verse 3, we have the restraining order. It is a mandate. “And he said” is present active participle from legw. Notice how it is translated, not as a participle. There is a reason for that found in the Greek syntax of the Koine. The circumstantial participle is an idiom first rendered into the English by the conjunction “and” and the finite verb, “And he said.”

Here is the command: the aorist active subjunctive of a)dikew which means to damage. But with it, what makes it a command is not the subjunctive as such but the negative mh plus the subjunctive mood. Mh plus the subjunctive is a strong negative command. This is an ingressive aorist tense contemplating the action of the verb at the beginning. It is used to denote the entrance into a state or condition but the active voice plus the negative means the pur sui vant messengers are not to produce the action of the verb but are on red alert to destroy certain parts of the earth through the function of the wind machine. They are to, in effect, stand down for a certain period of time. The subjunctive mood plus the negative is the subjunctive of prohibition which in this case is tantamount to a negative command from higher authority. The cherub who commands the weather machine and all those who operate it is the one who gave the command.

Then we have a time limit which is introduced by a temporal conjunction a)xri, “until,” and the aorist active subjunctive of the verb sfragizw which means to seal. The constative aorist contemplates the action of the verb in its entirety. The active voice: the pur sui vant officer produces the action, he is in command of the weather machine and he is also going to seal some evangelists for the Tribulation. Therefore the weather machine is to stand down from red alert and not enter into any function that would be detrimental until everyone has had a chance to hear the gospel. There is no such thing as a member of the human race at any time who did not have a chance to be saved.

“until we have sealed the servants of our God on their foreheads.” There are three connotations to sealing in this verse.

The first one is protection: 144,000 Jewish evangelists in the Tribulation will be protected from every devastating and sensational phenomenon that we are going to study. Even when Abaddon comes out of the Abyss with the super demons to attack, they will be protected. They are protected from the unrestrained disasters of the Tribulation.

God’s function in every dispensation is for believers who are living (in our dispensation) in the divine dynasphere. The only wall of fire is in the divine dynasphere and if you live habitually in the cosmic system there is no wall of fire for you as a believer. You have eternal security and that is all you are going to get, and a lot of judgement before you die.

The second concept is preservation: These evangelists will survive all of the historical disasters of the Tribulation. Note that there are three categories of survival in the Tribulation: the over-survivors (conservatives) who cache ammo and food in different places, etc. ; the liberals under-survive, as illustrated by their crusades for nuclear disarmament, their peace movements, their play into the hands of the communists, their soft attitude toward criminals; the wisdom survival crowd, the third category, includes both the application of doctrine and the flexibility under the direction of our Lord Jesus Christ and the ministry of the Holy Spirit. If there is a cache of food around they will find it; if there is a weapon handy they won’t need it or they will use it, but if there isn’t they are still going to survive. This is the wisdom crowd.

We have a third concept of sealing and that is validity. This emphasises the message of the 144,000 Jewish evangelists of the Tribulation. Everyone has a chance to hear the gospel, many will respond by faith in Christ. Of course, millions will not respond and will die horribly and enter into the torments of Hades.

So this verse illustrates the principle of grace before judgement. Prior to any divine judgement there is a grace period for repentance, changing your mind about Christ [which means faith in Christ]. Not an issue at this moment is rebound. The issue with unbelievers is salvation. Every person who dies will have had a fantastic opportunity to believe in the Lord Jesus Christ under the principle of grace before judgement.

There is probably nothing where such a contrast exists than with a client nation. The first client nation in history began in BC 1440 when the Jews were delivered from their terrible bondage in Egypt, the slavery of some 400 years. When they became a client nation immediately you have the contrast. Many, many nations in the past have not demonstrated the tremendous contrasts that any client nation will demonstrate for a client nation has a major issue which is not faced: What is truth? And those who respond to truth become magnificent and those who fail have all of the obvious failures and evil influence of their failures indelibly printed on the human race. So it was with Israel. There never was a time when a Jew could not say, What is truth? because even in their worship they always repeated these words: “Shama Yisrael, Hear O Israel; Adonai Elohenu, Jehovah [the Lord Jesus Christ] is our God; Adonai Echad, The Lord is unique [one in the sense of unique].” So here we have Jesus Christ as God, Jesus Christ in hypostatic union as the God-Man. That was the basis of the establishment of the first client nation.

Three times this client nation was removed by divine discipline, the fifth cycle, and each time there was a recovery until AD 70. After AD 70 there is no client nation Israel. Right down to this moment Israel is not a client nation and will never be one again until the second advent.

We see the beginning of evangelism in the Tribulation through 144,000 men who will be alive on the earth at that time and who will accept Christ as saviour after the Rapture. These 144,000 all have one thing in common: by race they are Jews, not by nationality but by race, and they will be used in a special system of evangelism.

Verse 4, we do have literally 144,000 people involved in this passage. We begin with the sequential use of the conjunction kai, translated “the,” followed by the aorist active indicative of the verb a)kuw, and it has to do with concentration. The constative aorist contemplates the action of the verb in its entirety, concentration under the ministry of the Holy Spirit. The active voice: the apostle John produces the action. The indicative mood is declarative for a simple statement of fact. With this we have the accusative singular direct object from the noun a)riqmoj, from which we get “arithmetic.” It is translated, “Then I heard the number which had been sealed,” the articular perfect passive participle of the verb sfragizw, which means to be sealed. The definite article in the genitive plural is used as a demonstrative pronoun, “those.” The perfect tense of existing state in which the past is dropped from the thought and the attention is focused on the status quo. The evangelism of the Tribulation begins with 144,000 Jewish evangelists. The passive voice: the 144,000 evangelists receive the action of the verb. The participle is a complementary participle, it completes the idea of the action expressed in the main verb. The concept is very simple: before they could be sealed they had to believe in Christ. They believed in Christ by being alert to the transition of historical trends between the Church Age and the Tribulation.

The resurrection of the Church terminates the Church Age. At that point there are no believers on the earth, and at that point they become aware of what has happened, that people have departed from the earth and at that point they become very alert, very interested, and they personally believe in the Lord Jesus Christ. 144,000 of that first wave of people who respond to the unusual event of the resurrection and all that pertains to it are Jews, and these 144,000 Jews live throughout the world. They will respond, they will be sealed and they will function before these historical disasters, the four horsemen of the apocalypse, occurs on the earth.

We have next the source of these people, 144,000 what? What kind of people? Who are they? And next we have again a perfect passive participle, they were sealed from every tribe of the sons of Israel, e)k plus the ablative of fulh, “from every tribe.” “Tribe” is technical. Not from every nationality, not from every race. this is a technical word for Israel. This is obvious because we have a descriptive genitive plural and a genitive of relationship, “of the sons of Israel.” And since the Tribulation is not only an era of history but the continuation of the dispensation of Israel, i.e. Daniel’s seventieth week, it is fitting that the evangelists should be taken from the client nation which was operating during that dispensation. These are all Jews by race.

Principle

1. The Jews who were scattered over the world during the Tribulation — in fact they are scattered today — are better able to appreciate from their own background and culture the significance of the importance of evangelism in the Tribulation.

2. They are conscious of the fact that they have been a client nation in the past, therefore they have client nation consciousness. Today under apostasy they seek to spread their culture, which is a great culture, and they place emphasis on it; but it demands regeneration, it demands positive volition toward the laws of divine establishment, and it demands what is being ignored today, that Jesus Christ is the God of Israel as well as the only saviour. So while there is no Jewish client nation in the Tribulation there will be a Jewish nation in Palestine.

3. These 144,000 Jewish evangelists must not be confused with the nation Israel at any time. The nation Israel is under the control of the Jewish dictator from the tribe of Dan during the Tribulation. This is the reason why their is no evangelistic representation from the tribe of Dan. As we progress into this passage we will see that twelve tribes are represented. Each one of these twelve tribes have 12,000 evangelists sealed from that tribe. But there are thirteen tribes in Israel due to the fact that when Reuben, who was the firstborn of Israel, lost the privileges of primogeniture, he lost three things: the rulership which went to David and therefore to the tribe of Judah, the family priesthood which went to Levi, the double portion which went to Joseph. Joseph has two sons: Manasseh and Ephraim, and these are included. So there are thirteen tribes in Israel. Only twelve are represented here; Dan is not. Dan appears to be the source of the false prophet, the second beast of Revelation thirteen. This explains, therefore, the famous tribal prophecy of Genesis 49:17 — “Dan will be a poisonous snake by the side of the road, a viper or a puff adder in the path that strikes the horse’s heel, so that the rider falls backward.” The horse is Israel and the rider is the Jewish believers of the Tribulation. The poisonous snake is the dictator. The profile of Dan explains why this tribe is omitted from the 144,000.

Profile of Dan

1. Dan brought up the rear of Israel, Numbers 10:25, which means dragging the feet and negative volition toward Bible doctrine.

2. Dan was the first tribe to become so involved in the cosmic system that it became idolatrous — Leviticus 24:11; Judges 18:2, 30,31.

3. It is noted from 1 Kings 11:26 and 12:28-30 that it was Dan who set up the golden calf in Israel when Moses was absent during the exodus.

4. Dan was the last tribe to receive the inheritance in the land, Joshua 19:47-49.

5. In the listing of the tribes Dan is always mentioned last as illustrated by 1 Chronicles 27:16-22.

6. Dan was also omitted from the genealogies which are found in Chronicles, 1 Chronicles chapters two through ten.

7. In this context, Revelation chapter seven, Dan is not mentioned — no evangelists from the tribe of Dan.

This, of course, indicates a principle: any form of apostasy inevitably eliminates one from functioning in the plan of God.

We now begin the roster in verses 5-8. There will be no translation of these things because they are well translated and are very simply put. What we have is, first of all, Reuben. He is mentioned first because he is the first-born.

Verse 5, “From the tribe of Judah twelve thousand were sealed. From the tribe of Reuben twelve thousand. From the tribe of Gad twelve thousand.”

Reuben should be mentioned first. Reuben is the first-born; Judah is not. All of a sudden we see immediately that there is a precedence and that this precedence recognises what happened in the formation of the nation Israel. Reuben is the first-born of Jacob. He should receive the entitlements of primogeniture. He lost out because of his sin in seducing Bilhah who was a part of Jacob’s harem and the mother of Dan and Naphthali. He was guilty of incest. It isn’t the incest itself that eliminated him but the mental attitude, the motivation, all that was involved in his spiritual failure and his lack of honour and integrity. Therefore Reuben was guilty of incest, Genesis 35:22-23. But that is not the real reason, incest was merely the result. The reason is stated that Reuben was unstable as water — Genesis 49. Since he was unstable as water it meant that he vacillated between the cosmic system and the spiritual life as a patriarch. Reuben therefore lost the right of primogeniture.

One of the greatest problems and distractions in life is instability, people who vacillate. One moment they are gung ho for doctrine, the next moment they are distracted by something else. They never get their scale of values straight. They can never seem to put first what is most important. As a result they have vacillating, unstable lives, they are constantly seeking happiness, seeking blessing but they never find it. Reuben had the blessing of rulership but he lost it to Judah. Judah is mentioned first therefore as the ruler of Israel in this verse. This emphasises the importance of the dynasty of David. Jesus Christ was born a Son of David and He will rule Israel forever under that title.

The principle is obvious: The advantage of birth [Reuben] becomes a disadvantage in life when one is involved in the cosmic system, not only with its sin and evil but with its human good as well.

We are born, of course, unequal. We live in a society always where there is inequality, where there is unfairness. There are two reasons for this. First, the devil is the ruler of this world and he gives preferential treatment to his own cosmic slaves. Secondly, the sovereignty of God has made free will or volition the issue in the angelic conflict, which means the impossibility of equality in the human race. Volition is the issue and for volition to function there must be freedom. Where freedom does not exist there is still inequality due to tyranny. Hence, there are two sources of inequality: tyranny sponsored by Satan’s cosmic system, and freedom sponsored by the laws of divine establishment.

The third concept is that there is inequality at birth combined with the quality of opportunity, which means that you fail or succeed on the basis of your own volition. However, inequality continues to exist because people who are born with handicaps plug along and succeed, whereas people like Reuben who are born with greatest opportunity fail.

Reuben, therefore, had every advantage at birth. These advantages became disadvantages simply because he was not willing to plug. He was not willing after his salvation to learn doctrine today, tomorrow, the next day. He was not willing to live his life out as unto the Lord and his instability meant loss of his great rank and opportunity. When one is involved in the cosmic system — and that includes its sin and its human good, and inevitably its evil — then that becomes a disadvantage, a handicap. The disadvantages of birth in the case of Judah, Levi and Joseph became advantages through spiritual momentum from doctrine after salvation.

While Judah is the royal tribe and Reuben is the first-born the question arises as to why Gad is mentioned third, even though he is the seventh son of Jacob. Gad means fortune and prosperity. From Genesis 49:19 it is concluded that Gad recovered quickly from defeat and he was never discouraged by temporary setbacks in his life. He regarded every adversity in life as a challenge and never became discouraged and felt sorry for himself. And since Gad means good fortune, good fortune comes to those who regard the adversities of life, not as a basis for complaining, not as a basis for operation cry-baby, not as a basis for indulging in self-pity, but as a challenge to trust the Lord, to apply doctrine and to learn even more doctrine to meet more challenges.

Genesis 49:19, “Gad will be attacked by a company of raiders, he will counterattack at their heels.”

That is the prophecy of Gad. Gad was going to be defeated in an attack by a company of raiders but he had the tremendous flexibility, even though he was down not to give up, and he reorganised and counterattacked at their heels. This is analogous the grace provision of rebound for the believer. There can be no spiritual prosperity apart from the rebound technique. Gad is probably mentioned third in this passage because of the importance of rebound, the importance of flexibility, the importance of understanding the principles of recovery. For us as believers the application is obvious: the Christian way of life, gate one, the filling of the Spirit; gate two, basic impersonal love, the beginning of virtue, honour and integrity; gate three, enforced and genuine humility, teachability in life. These three gates become the support for gate four, perception and application of doctrine; gate five is the principle of love of God; gate six, right man-right woman where pertinent; gate seven, the crystallisation of honour and integrity plus category three love friendship; gate eight is the construction of the edification complex of the soul and spiritual maturity. For us, this is the playing field; this is God’s game plan for the Church Age. We must live and reside and function inside of the divine dynasphere.

So in the very first verse of our roster we meet the first three tribes. “From the tribe of Judah, twelve thousand.” Judah is mentioned first as the ruling tribe. Judah illustrates the principle of being a plugger and therefore — the one who should have been the ruler was Reuben, yet Reuben was too unstable and failed — Judah became the ruler, and it was through integrity and honour and plugging, and the absence of motivating evil such as jealousy, arrogance, bitterness, self-righteousness, guilt complex, etc. All of these things hinder people in life. All of these things have application even to unbelievers as well as to those who have personally trusted in the Lord Jesus Christ.

Then we have Reuben, set aside, put in second place because of instability. You cannot regard the adversities of life in terms of self-pity [which is arrogance, preoccupation with self], in terms of complaining and whining, you cannot feel sorry for yourself and ever have any blessing or happiness in life.

Gad is mentioned third in verse five because Gad represents the true concept of prosperity. The concept is one of continuing to be flexible, to counter attack, to never allow a disastrous situation of any kind to destroy your life but to be completely above these things.

Principle: Every believer who is going to succeed in life must be a spiritual counter-puncher. To be a counter puncher you always punch from a stable position. The secret to punching is the stability of your feet. You have to have your feet on the ground. It requires stability. Reuben was as unstable as water; Gad was stable. You will never be a counter-puncher without the stability of maximum doctrine resident in your soul. You have to counter-punch every time you are in adversity and the Lord has to be more real to you than the personality conflicts of adversity and the circumstances of adversity. So obviously, then, Gad represents the person who utilises the grace of God in perception of doctrine. As long as God gives you life on this earth you must function under the principle of never quitting. Rebound and keep moving fulfils the concept of logistical grace found in Lamentations 3:19-25.

Gad means fortune or prosperity, but that fortune or prosperity comes through grace. Grace gives the opportunity for capacity for prosperity and fortune because grace is always accompanied by humility. Gad was a counter-puncher, he was under pressure but he never allowed the pressures of life to in any way inhibit his application of doctrine. It is the arrogance of the cosmic system which destroys all capacity for blessing. In the Tribulation there will be blessing and prosperity in spite of historical adversity. Furthermore, that blessing and prosperity to positive believers will include capacity for blessing in the midst of great historical adversity.

In verse 5 we have the first three tribes and we learn something about evangelism from them. Judah was the plugger and one thing with the gift of evangelism must recognise because they are tempted not to is to keep studying the Word of God. If there is any criticism of those who have the gift of evangelism today it is, generally speaking, that they have stopped studying. They are ignorant of doctrine.

Then there are those like the tribe of Reuben who have a great personality, the first-born, the ruler, the hotshot. These are not the ones who make it. There is great blessing for those who have the gift of evangelism but they must follow the pattern of Judah and keep plugging.

Verse 6, “And from the tribe of Asher, twelve thousand. From the tribe of Naphthali, twelve thousand. From the tribe of Manasseh, twelve thousand.”

Note that the tribes are not listed according the order of birth as the sons of Jacob. For example, Judah was the fourth son of Jacob. Reuben is the first-born. Gad is Jacob’s seventh son. Asher was the eighth son of Jacob but he appears number four in the order here. Naphthali is the sixth son of Jacob. Manasseh is the eldest son of Joseph and he is mentioned third here in this passage. Joseph was the eldest son of Jacob and Rachel. He was the eleventh born to Jacob.

The 144,000 evangelists never gave up and throughout the entire time of the Tribulation — seven years of every kind of disaster and danger. They refused to surrender, continued to give the gospel, and won thousands and thousands of people to the Lord. Every one of these evangelists survived to the end of the Tribulation under incredible circumstances.

We have noted that the disadvantages of birth belonged to Judah, Levi, and Joseph, but they became advantages through spiritual momentum from the consistent perception of Bible doctrine. While Judah is the royal tribe Reuben is the first-born and therefore he is mentioned secondly in verse 5.

Gad is mentioned third even though he is the seventh son of David. He never gave up no matter how difficult things became. He represents the concept of plugging under grace provision to serve the Lord in spite of failure, in spite of cosmic involvement. Every believer must be a good spiritual counter-puncher. As long as God gives us life, never surrender, never give up. Gad means fortune or prosperity from never giving up. Grace gives the opportunity for capacity for prosperity and fortune because grace is always accompanied by humility. It is the arrogance of the cosmic system which destroys all capacity for blessing and causes people to surrender and to give up in life.

We have to stop and note that Jacob had a harem of two wives and two mistresses. From these four came all of the twelve patriarchs. First of all there was Leah and Zilpa her maid. Then there was Rachel and Bilhah, her maid. Leah had six sons: Reuben, Simeon, Levi, Judah, were the first four. Then two more came a little later. In between was born Issachar and Zebulun. Zilpa had Gad and Asher. Rachel had Joseph and Benjamin. Bilhah also had two, Dan and Naphthali, and if ever there were a couple of real problems these were they.

Since the order in verse 6 is not chronological it is has something to do with the unrestrained historical adversities of the Tribulation. In spite of the historical disasters there will be members of the human race who will believe in Christ, who will have positive volition toward doctrine, resulting in great spiritual momentum. Spiritual momentum or lack of it on the part of Tribulational believers seems to be linked to the order or sequence in which the Tribes are presented here. For example, Judah in verse 5 was first. This implies promotion, high office or success during time of historical disaster. Judah was a plugger and because he was consistent in his perception of doctrine, no matter how great the adversity, he had phenomenal promotion and success.

Here is the principle: No matter how great the adversities may be God honours believers who are faithful in doctrine and He promotes them in time of great adversity. Furthermore, remember that if God doesn’t promote you then you are not promoted. Man may promote you but it doesn’t mean a thing. For man to promote you when God doesn’t means great suffering, pain, a miserable and even a ruined life. In other words, certain positive believers would be promoted in the midst of great adversity and unrest, and the twelve thousand from Judah are illustrations of those who are faithful, of those who learn doctrine as evangelists, and God promoted them.

There will also be many Reubens, believers who have all the advantages of life but after salvation through faith in Christ they were unstable, easily distracted, having a wrong scale of values, negative toward doctrine, living in the cosmic system, preoccupied with self, full of self-pity, pettiness, arrogance, etc.

There will also be some believers who follow the pattern of Gad, whose failures will not hinder their spiritual life. They will be counter-punchers, you can’t keep them down. Because of rebound and the utilisation of logistical grace they will recover and keep advancing in the spiritual life. That brings us to verse 6 and Asher. In this verse and in genesis 49:20 Asher depicts the prosperity of positive believers during the Tribulation. In other words, adverse historical circumstances do not hinder the prosperity of mature believers.

According to the prophecy of Genesis 49:21 Naphthali represents the Tribulational believer freed from the trap of sin after the Rapture by believing in Christ. Actually, in Genesis 49 Gad, Asher, and Naphthali all describe the remnant of believers in the Tribulation. Naphthali means “my wrestling” and reminds us of the tremendous spiritual conflict which will exist in the Tribulation, a time of unrestrained adversity and historical disaster. Nevertheless, in spite of that there is great blessing.

Asher means happiness and reminds us of the fact that no matter how horrible the circumstances of life may become we can have the same happiness that we would have in a time of historical prosperity. Manasseh was one of the weakest tribes of Israel, a reminder that helplessness and humility are ingredients for honouring and serving the Lord. Manasseh is the eldest son of Joseph by his Egyptian wife, and since Manasseh and his younger brother Ephraim were adopted by Jacob on his death bed, and both became tribes of Israel, giving to Joseph the double portion lost by Reuben they depict the concept of blessing by association with those who have strength. Joseph had great strength. They were his sons, they were blessed by association. It teaches us the great principle we have studied before in 2 Corinthians chapter 12: Out of weakness comes strength.

Verse 7, “And from the tribe of Simeon, twelve thousand. From the tribe of Levi, twelve thousand. From the tribe of Issachar, twelve thousand.”

Simeon was the second son of Jacob by Leah. He was cruel, Genesis 34:25; he was deceitful and conspiratorial, Genesis 49:6. He was arrogant, he was hot-tempered, he was devoid of mercy, he was full of his own self-importance. Jacob was shocked by the evil performed by Simeon and Levi, and because of the weakness of this tribe it was scattered throughout the land of Israel. The fact that twelve thousand were saved and sealed out of Simeon emphasises the principle of grace throughout human history .

Levi was everything his brother was, arrogant, jealous, vindictive, full of self-importance on the one hand and self-pity on the other, he was cruel and conspiratorial. He was just like his brother but cursing was turned to blessing for Levi because Levi rebounded. From Levi came Moses, Aaron and the priesthood. Levi was appointed to the priesthood, Numbers 18:20-21. The rebound of Levi with his cursing turned to blessing is documented in such passages as Exodus 32:25-29; Deuteronomy 33:8-11; Numbers 8:5-18; 3:5-9.

Here are two brothers, both evil, both cruel, both vile in every possible way. Yet one of them came to the point of blessing; one went out under terrible discipline. The grace of God extended to Levi in Moses plus the Levitical priesthood is extended into the future where 12,000 believers of the tribe of Levi are sealed as Tribulational evangelists.

Issachar means in the Hebrew, “He will bring reward.” This emphasises the fact that God will reward in eternity those believers, whether in the Tribulation or in this dispensation, who are faithful, who are consistent, who remain in a state of humility, who are never bothered by the problems of gate one, cosmic one. What is clearly stated for us as believers in Christ in the Church Age is also implied through Issachar for believers in the Tribulation. Advancing to maturity will be intensified, they will have less time to do it but they will have great opportunity. However, it will require intense concentration, they can’t do what believers in the Church Age do now and then — miss Bible class. They will not be able to miss at all. They will advance to maturity even though it is a very short and horrible time in history.

Verse 8, Zebulun was the tenth son of Jacob and the last one by Leah. His name means dwelling or habitation. In the prophecy of Genesis 49:13 Zebulun is described as a haven for ships.” This has a messianic connotation since Galilee was where Joseph and Mary found haven after their return from Egypt. During the Tribulation some of the evangelists will actually have places where people can come after salvation, hear doctrine, grow in grace, without being disturbed by the terrible historical events of that age. In the Tribulation 12,000 evangelists of Zebulun will be a haven for many disaster victims of the Tribulation.

Next is the tribe of Joseph. It is actually a reference to the tribe of Ephraim. However, Ephraim is omitted because he was the tribe which led the revolution against the dynasty of David and the tribe of Judah as the ruling tribe of Israel. Jeroboam, the first king of the northern kingdom of the ten tribes. was from the tribe of Ephraim, 1 Kings 11:26. But using Joseph’s name instead of that of Ephraim is very significant because Joseph was a man who never tried to promote himself. Only once in his lifetime did he seek self-advancement and as we have noted it kept him in jail for two extra years. Joseph was a man whose faith in the Lord was so strong, whose application of doctrine was so great, whose personal love for the Lord Jesus Christ was so fantastic that he never got ahead of the Lord, except once. He was a man, therefore, who was laid back, low profile, not pushy, not out in front looking for ways and means to get ahead; not playing the game by normal standards but playing the game by God’s standards. In the Tribulation there will be great leaders: the man for the crisis just as Joseph was the man for the crisis in Egypt. In times of historical disaster the solution lies not with the hotshots, the front runners, the loudmouths, but with those who have a steady intake of divine power. Remember: the Word of God is alive and powerful.

Benjamin is the full brother of Joseph, the last son of Jacob. Benjamin means “son of the right hand” which was an obvious messianic reference, a reminder that the Tribulation will terminate with the second advent of our Lord Jesus Christ. And just as Benjamin was faithful to Judah in the great revolution which split the nation so Benjamin will be faithful in the dissemination of the gospel during the Tribulation. Benjamin emphasises the importance of faithfulness and one of the greatest manifestations of integrity, capacity for love.

Again, note that Dan is omitted because of the Tribulational dictatorship coming from the tribe of Dan. Because Dan was easily distracted, because the tribe of Dan was the first one to go into idolatry, because Dan was sincere but never had clear, strong concepts of value, he had an erroneous scale of values and could easily be led astray by anyone or anything.

It should be noted that this passage is also the basis for false teaching from the so-called Jehovah’s witnesses, a blasphemous cult which distorts the Word of God.

The passage closes out with a perfect passive participle from the verb sfragizw, “having been sealed.” It is translated like an imperfect tense or a past tense.

Verse 9, then comes the phrase meta tauta. That is the preposition meta plus the accusative neuter plural of the immediate demonstrative pronoun o(utoj, “After these things,” after the vision of sealing the 144,000 Jewish evangelists for the Tribulation. Since the Tribulation is Daniel’s seventieth week and the end of the Jewish Age it is fitting that the evangelists are Jewish, even though there is no Jewish client nation to God until the second advent. This prepositional phrase begins the second section of Revelation 7, the result of Tribulational evangelism.

There is other Tribulational evangelism given in chapter eleven. Moses and Elijah are brought back. Then in chapter fourteen even angels are going to evangelise. But in this passage we have the results of the ministry of the 144,000 Jewish evangelists scattered all over the world. So we have the results of the Tribulational evangelism in verses 9-14. The description of the Tribulational martyrs is the first description of result.

In verse 9 we have a description of the Tribulational martyrs. We have noted briefly the prepositional phrase which begins this passage, meta plus the accusative neuter plural from the immediate demonstrative pronoun o(utoj, correctly translated “After these things.” It refers to the vision of the sealing of the 144,000 Jewish evangelists. Since the Tribulation is Daniel’s seventieth week, as well as the end of the Jewish Age, it is fitting that the evangelists are Jewish although there is no Jewish client nation to God until the second advent.

We have noted the aorist active indicative of the verb o(raw, translated “I looked.” With this we have the connective kai plus the demonstrative particle i)dou, “I looked and behold.” With this we have the adjective poluj, meaning large or great, plus o)xloj, “a large crowd.” These are the believers martyred during the Tribulation. Add to that the phrase “which no man could number.”

The removal of national prejudice in communicating the gospel

That brings us to the categorical removal of barriers to evangelism in the Tribulation. We begin our prepositional phrase. One prepositional phrase encompasses all four categories, e)k plus the ablative of the four categories connected by the conjunction kai. There are four objects of the preposition e)k, each represents a barrier to evangelism; and in this case each represents a barrier of evangelism removed. So we anticipate the removal of national barriers to evangelism, the removal of racial barriers to evangelism, the removal of social barriers to evangelism, and the removal of linguistics barriers.

There is a principle of anticipation broken down into three concepts.

1. In evangelism there must be no national prejudice in the presentation of the gospel.

2. There must be no racial prejudice in the presentation of the gospel.

3. There must be no social prejudice in the presentation of the gospel.

Arrogance plus these three areas of prejudice destroy the effective presentation of the gospel in the three categories: personal witnessing, the evangelistic ministry of those who have the spiritual gift, and national evangelism or missionary activity.

So we begin the removal of national barriers, e)k plus the ablative singular of paj plus e)qnoj, “from all nations.” It is a reference to Gentile nations. E)qnoj is sometimes translated “Gentiles” and sometimes it is translated “nations,” both are legitimate — Gentile nations, therefore a national barrier to evangelism. The principle is that national barriers do not hinder Tribulational evangelism.

The concept

a. The removal of national prejudice in communicating the gospel.

1. From BC 14440 to AD 70, over 1500 years of history, client nation Israel had the responsibility of evangelising Gentile nations.

2. The failure of evangelism and missionary activity was one of the reasons for the three administrations of the fifth cycle of discipline to Israel.

3. It is obvious then that the responsibility of client nation Israel was the evangelism of Gentiles and Gentile nations.

4. While there is no client nation Israel in the Tribulation mass evangelism will be carried out by Jewish evangelists who will present the gospel to Gentiles and Gentile nations.

5. The principle behind this: There must be no national prejudice in the presentation of the gospel. Why did the Jews fail in the past? They became arrogant about their culture and therefore they became involved in cosmic one and cosmic two. As a result they could not evangelise.

6. When Christ was on the cross He was judged for the sins of the entire world, therefore there must be no national prejudice in presenting the gospel.

7. In spite of the fact that anti-Semitism reaches its peak in the Tribulation [Revelation chapter 12] these Jewish evangelists reach thousands and millions of Gentiles in Gentile nations. These Jewish evangelists will be evangelising under the greatest period of anti-Semitism the world will ever know.

8. Furthermore, Jewish evangelists of the Tribulation perform their evangelistic responsibilities without the support of a client nation. National barriers do not hinder evangelism in the Tribulation. National barriers will be up because of extensive warfare during the Tribulation.

The reason that large crowd was one which no man could count or number is because national prejudice was removed from the thinking of the evangelists.

b. The second is the removal of racial barriers.

This is in the next two words, kai plus the ablative plural of fulh, referring to Jewish tribes and therefore to the racial barrier, “and tribes.” The Jewish tribes represent racial barriers. Racial barriers do not hinder Tribulational evangelism. In other words, effective and honourable evangelism in the Tribulation is conducted without any racial prejudice. The application should be obvious for our dispensation. Effective and honourable evangelism [speaking of those who have the gift of evangelism and then about the individual as a witness for Christ] demands the removal of any racial prejudice.

c. The third is the removal of social barriers.

Continuing the preposition e)k, and this time the ablative plural of laoj referring to people in contrast to their leaders. Hence, it connotes the common people and it should be translated “the masses.” In other words, the concept of social barriers. Principle: Social prejudice is a hindrance to evangelism in any dispensation. Our Lord Jesus Christ had no social prejudice when He was hanging on the cross. He was judged for all classes of society. When it comes to the gospel there is no upper class, there is not lower class, there is no middle class; social barriers are excluded.

d. The removal of linguistic barriers.

This time we have the implied e)k as given by the conjunction kai, and the ablative plural of glossa, “tongues.” It refers to foreign languages, “and languages.” There is the removal of foreign language barriers in Tribulational evangelism. Since the administration of the 5th cycle of discipline to Israel in AD 70 and the beginning of the times of the Gentiles the Jews have been scattered throughout the world. They live in many nations and in many places. Their cursing is turned to blessing through the mastery of the languages where they live. So these 144,000 Jewish evangelists are capable of communicating in all of the world at that time.

“After these things [the sealing of the 144,000 Jewish evangelists of the Tribulation] I looked, and behold a large crowd which no one could count, from all [Gentile] nations, and [Jewish] tribes, and the masses [the common people], and foreign languages … ”

Notice the location of these particular Tribulational converts. They are said to be standing, the perfect active participle of verb i(stemi which means “standing.” The perfect tense here is an intensive perfect in which special emphasis is placed on the results of the action, therefore the existing status quo is intensified. This is an emphatic method in the Greek language for presenting the fact of Tribulational martyrs residing in heaven in their interim bodies. They are there because of these 144,000 evangelists. It is translated like an English present tense but it presents the existing fact far more forcibly. There are two perfect tenses in the participial form which are translated different from the perfect. In the English we translate the perfect by the word “had.” But there are two perfect tenses, one is translated in the present tense, the intensive perfect, and one is translated in the imperfect or past tense. So it is very important to note that the perfect tense has several translations that do not seem to jibe with our English language. The active voice: believers of the Tribulation who are martyred for their faith produce the action. The participle is circumstantial.

With this we have a prepositional phrase, the improper preposition e)nwpion plus qronoj, “before the throne.” Then we have a connective kai and, once again, the prepositional phrase e)nwpion plus a)rnion which means, “and before the Lamb.” The throne is mentioned for God the Father because He is invisible; the Lamb is visible to them as the only saviour.

The principle about the Father being invisible but the Son is visible because of His hypostatic union: this concept is found in John 1:18 where Jesus said: “No man has seen God at any time; but God the only Son, the unique Son, who is at the Father’s side, he has made him known.” Cf.. John 6:46; 1 John 4:12. It is only because of the hypostatic union that God the Son is visible. So the invisible member of the Godhead who is seated on the throne is God the Father, and the visible member of the holy Trinity, the Lamb, is visible thanks to the fact that He is in hypostatic union. Therefore the use of the word “Lamb,” not only to emphasise the so great salvation which took place on the cross but also to emphasise the strategic victory and the fact that He is now different from God the Father and God the Holy Spirit. He is coequal and coeternal with them in His deity but in His humanity He is unique, He is different from them.

At this point we have the interim life of the Tribulational martyrs, a subject which occurs frequently in this part of the book of Revelation. These martyrs have a fantastic interim life just as today there is interim life for all those who have died as believers in the Church Age. Interim life is defined as the life of all born-again believers who have died. They have gone to heaven, they are in an interim body, they are recognisable, there is no unhappiness or misery, Revelation 21:4. And, remember, the interim life happiness is for all believers who die; winners and losers are not distinguished in the interim life.

In the remainder of verse seven we have the perfect passive participle from the verb periballw which means to be clothed, “they were wearing.” The intensive perfect dramatised is what we have in this particular case, hence the dramatic perfect tense which emphasises the existing state of the Tribulational martyrs. They are living the interim life. For the person who dies there are three lives. First there is temporal life, the believer on earth. Then when he dies, interim life, the believer in heaven waiting for his pertinent resurrection. Then there is resurrection life. All three of these categories belong to the title “eternal life.” We have eternal life the moment we believe in the Lord Jesus Christ. Note that these categories emphasise the body. We have a physical body in temporal life; we have an interim body in interim life; we have a resurrection body in resurrection life.

The passive voice of the participle indicates the fact that the Tribulational martyrs receive the action of the verb. The participle is circumstantial, expressing the attendant circumstances of their martyrdom, an additional fact or thought which is best rendered in the English by the conjunction “and” plus the finite verb, “and they were wearing.” Then there is the accusative plural of two words giving us our direct object, the adjective leukoj, “white,” and then the noun stolh, “robes.” The two words together refer to the interim body. White robes do not always refer to the interim body but they certainly do here. The use of stole rather than i(mation emphasises the interim body in heaven prior to receiving the resurrection body. The interim body for the Church Age believer who dies before the Rapture we have noted before in 2 Corinthians 5:8, “absent from the body, face to face with the Lord.” Then we have a connective kai for an additional piece of information. We can translate it either “plus” or “and.” Then the nominative plural subject from the noun foinic, which means a date palm or the branches of a palm tree. We translate it “and palm branches.” And then the prepositional phrase e)n plus the locative from the noun xeir. And with this we have a)utoj, the possessive genitive — “in their hands.”

Translation of verse 9: “After these things I looked, and behold, a large crowd which no one could count, from all the [Gentile] nations, and [Jewish] tribes, and the masses, and foreign languages, standing before the throne, and before the Lamb; and they were wearing white robes, and palm branches were in their hands”.

Why do they have palm branches in their hands? We see something of the historical outlook for Israel from their schedule of feasts. There are seven feasts which the Jews celebrated as a client nation to God. They are divided into two sections. There were the feasts regarding the first advent, four of them, and we have the

feasts of the second advent, three of them. The Passover represents the work of our Lord Jesus Christ on the cross. It was generally celebrated around 14 April. Next came the feast of unleavened bread which was a seven-day feast and it represents rebound and the advance to maturity. It was in the week 15-21 April.

During that time there was the feast of the firstfruits, the first Sunday after the Passover, and it portrays the resurrection of our Lord Jesus Christ, the importance of eternal relationship with God in resurrection. The integrity of God provides great reward after resurrection. Then there was the feast of Pentecost which is fifty days after the Passover. That means it was approximately the first week of June. It represents the setting aside of Israel as a client nation to God through the administration of the fifth cycle of discipline. Then came a great gap between the first set of feasts and the second. There were no feasts between June and October and this represents the time when the Church Age, the dispensation of the royal family of God, is inserted. Then came the feasts of the second advent, three of them: the trumpets is the termination of the fifth cycle of discipline, the restoration of Israel as a priest nation, and it is related to the second advent; the feast of the atonement, Yom Kippar, which is the fulfilment of the unconditional covenants to Israel [the Abrahamic, Palestinian, Davidic and New Covenants], and this is what pre-millennialism is all about; the feast of the tabernacles which depicts the Millennial reign of Christ.

The feast of the tabernacles has a great deal to do with the fact that these people, these Tribulational martyrs, are holding palm branches in their hands. In Psalm 118 the real key is in verses 14-26. In the Psalm 118 we have what might be called the ancient national anthem of Israel because it was the anthem of the two advents of Christ and it recognised Jesus Christ as eternal God. On verses 14-26 we will see the national anthem as it pertains to the palm branches in their hands.

Verse 1, “Give thanks” is the first phrase, or “Be thankful,” or “Have a thankful mental attitude.” It is the hiphil perfect of the verb jadah. The hiphil stem is the causative active voice. You have to be motivated to be thankful, you have to be caused to be thankful, and the motivation or the cause comes from Bible doctrine resident in the soul. The key, then, to presenting the ancient national anthem of Israel is Bible doctrine resident in the soul of the believer. There is a relationship between advancing to maturity and the blessing of the client nation. It was true of Israel; it is true of us. For advancing to maturity forms the pivot and all blessing of the nation is blessing by association, therefore the necessity of the believer advancing to maturity. Thanksgiving is one of the principles that signifies capacity for life, capacity for love, capacity for happiness. Ungrateful people are never happy. Lack of gratitude indicates arrogance, whereas humility and gratitude go together.

“to the Lord, for he is good” refers to His divine integrity, for the word tob in the Hebrew is

absolute good; “For his grace [chesed] is eternal.”

Verse 2, “O let Israel say, His grace is eternal,” a reference to the attitude of the mature

believer. Recognising the eternity of grace he makes the application from eternity back into time. One of the greatest applications in time of disaster is to go from your knowledge of eternity back into time. The application of doctrines pertaining to eternity are brought into time so that you conclude under the faith-rest drill the principle that is found in Romans 8:28, that all things work together for good because God is good, God has perfect integrity. Your life is in God’s hands in time and therefore no matter what happens to you, whether disaster or great prosperity, there is no place for being depressed, for giving up, for being disturbed. The only people who can recover from the disastrous consequences of their bad decisions are believers with doctrine resident in the soul, doctrine in the form of its rationales.

Verse 4, “O let those who are in awe of the Lord say,” those who respect the Lord, and in this dispensation those who respect the Lord function at gate five of the divine dynasphere, respect for the Lord. All true love begins with awe or respect. It is maintained by respect converted into awe, “His grace is eternal.”

Verse 8, “It is better to take refuge in the Lord than to trust in man.” Inevitably in our lifetime we are going to have conflict between the human viewpoint presented by some friend or loved one and the divine viewpoint which is presented by the Word of God. This is a test we all face when we learn something from the Word and then someone we love or respect comes up with some human viewpoint concept that is contrary to that divine viewpoint. So there the conflict is on and the conflict has to be resolved by going with divine viewpoint as you see it, the three stages of the faith-rest drill, the function of impersonal love, and you come to this conclusion: “it is better to take refuge in the Lord than to trust in man.” Only God can solve our problems and we can enter into the solution by advancing to maturity.

Verse 9, “It is better to take refuge in the Lord than to trust in politicians.”

In verses 14-18 we start getting our explanation of that word “the palm.”

Verse 14, the recognition of Israel’s future. Remember that the nation Israel today has no

future, it is not a client nation. There is a nation Israel when the Jews are regathered at the second advent and it has an eternal future.

“The Lord is my power and my song,” we are noting the words of the national anthem. We do not have the tune be here we have the lyrics, “because he has become my salvation [or deliverance].”

Now the two advents, and strangely enough, because the Jews confuse the two issues, in this Psalm the first time we see the two advents the second advent is mentioned first.

Verse 15, the second advent. “The sound of joyful shouting, therefore deliverance is in the

tents of the righteous.” The “tents of the righteous” is a reference to the feast of the tabernacles, the feast that denotes the second advent and the Millennial reign of Jesus Christ. The righteous are those who have God’s righteousness. In other words, those who are believers at the second advent will fulfil the feast of the tabernacles.

Now we go immediately to the first advent. The first advent will come before the second advent or the cross must come before the crown. “The right hand of the Lord [title for Jesus Christ] has accomplished integrity.”

Verse 16, “The right hand of the Lord is exalted.” The exaltation began with the resurrection,

ascension and session of Christ, “the right hand of the Lord has accomplished integrity.”

Verse 17, this refers to three subjects: to David, who is the human writer in reversion

recovery; to the nation Israel, anticipating their restoration from historical disaster of the fifth cycle of discipline; and Jesus Christ in resurrection. “I shall not die, but live.” David was under the sin unto death but he is going to live. For the Lord Jesus Christ it is a reference to His resurrection. It is also a reference to the nation of Israel as a client nation to God. They are dead right now. There is a Jewish nation but it is not a client nation and cannot be, we are in the times of the Gentiles; but it is a reference to the fact that in 70 AD when Israel died as a client nation to God it will live again as a client nation — second advent. It must be remembered that the Jews are very enthusiastic about these things, so enthusiastic that they are going to have palm branches in their hands.

— “therefore I will narrate the works of the Lord,” because of these wonderful things which are going to take place.

Verse 18, “The Lord has disciplined me severely,” a reference to David in reversionism, a reference to Israel under the fifth cycle of discipline, a reference to Christ on the cross — He was disciplined in the sense that God the Father first of all imputed all of our sins to Him and then judged them — “but he has not given me over to death,” the restoration of Israel in the Millennium. At this point the Jews sang this much of the national anthem on the feast of the tabernacles, and then they approached the temple. As they entered the temple they sang verses 19-21. Again, remember that this is a hymn that was sung both at the Passover and at the feast of the tabernacles. As a matter of fact this hymn, Psalm 118, was sung at the last Passover in the upper room by the disciples, after the Eucharist. The hymn was also sung at the dedication of the second temple. It was sung at all ceremonies involving any kind of parade to the temple, Isaiah 51:11.

Verse 19,20, entering the temple. “Open to me the gates of righteousness; I shall enter through them, I shall give thanks to Jah [Lord]; this is the gate of the Lord,” they are entering the temple, “the righteous [imputed righteousness] enter through it.”

Verse 21, “I shall give thanks to you, for you have answered me; because you have become my salvation [and my deliverance].” That was sung as they entered the temple.

In verses 22-23 we have the first advent of Christ; in verses 24-26 we have the second advent of Christ, and it is here that we have the palm branches beginning to shape up.

Verse 22, the first advent. “The stone [Christ] which the builders [client nation Israel] rejected has become the head of the corner.” The head of the corner is the place where the two walls come together. Israel was the client nation and all of a sudden they come to a dead end, they come to the corner. Now the Church Age has client nations. Christ is the head of both Israel and the Church. That is what is means to be the head of the corner. The two walls are Israel and the Church; Christ is the ruler of Israel and the head of the Church. This passage is quoted three times in the New Testament — Acts 4:11,12; 1 Peter 2:4; Mark 12:10.

Verse 23, “This is from God,” from the integrity of God the Father, from the resurrection of Christ: God the Father resurrected the humanity of Christ, “It is marvellous in our eyes.”

Verse 24, then they skip to the second advent: “This is the day the Lord has made,” reference to the fulfilment of the integrity of God to Israel at the second advent. The day of the second advent is the day that the Lord has made; it is a reference to the day of the Lord, the time when Jesus Christ will regather Israel and will fulfil the unconditional covenants, “We will rejoice and be glad in it.”

Verse 25 will be sung by the Jews on the day of the Lord, but it was sung prophetically every

time they had the feast of tabernacles. “Ah now Jehovah, save [deliver] us now please.” That is the corrected translation, but unfortunately verse 25 has a problem. It is mistranslated in Mark 11:9 where they gave us the Hebrew, the hiphil imperative and they transliterated it, hoshiana, by the word Hosanna. And that is the mistake, they never should have translated it “Hosanna.”

Psalm 118; Mark 11:12

Psalm 118:25, the psalm sung by the Jews at the second advent continues: “Ah now Jehovah, save us now please.” We have seen that hoshiana is transliterated in the King James version of Mark

11:9 as Hosanna. Hoshiana means “save please.” “Ah now, Jehovah, send us prosperity please.”

It should be noted that on the first Palm Sunday the second line of verse 25 was omitted. They were afraid to sing this line so they just simply cut it out. They were afraid that the Romans would take it the wrong way.

Verse 26, “Blessed is he who enters in the name of the Lord; we have blessed you from the house of the Lord.” Again, on that first Palm Sunday they omitted the second line of this verse: “we have blessed you from the house of the Lord.” It will be demonstrated from two other passages that the Jews tampered with this hymn, this great national anthem. This hymn was distorted by arrogance, by self-righteousness, by emphasising the political instead of the spiritual. These Jews wanted the crown without the cross; they wanted the second advent without the significance of the first advent. Of course, God always demands the cross before the crown. The maladjustment to the integrity of God was the problem with these people. In other words, the wanted political reform without eternal salvation — the political before the spiritual. Without the integrity of God political reform is meaningless. Freedom and prosperity in a nation can only be meaningful and permanent when related to the integrity of God and a pivot of mature believers. There is no historical blessing for Israel in the generation of our Lord Jesus Christ in His first advent.

Mark 11:1-9, the first Palm Sunday

First of all the Jews put verses 25 and 26 of Psalm 118 first, and they left out the first advent which we saw in verses 23 and 24. It was the Passover and therefore time to sing the national anthem. Jesus left Jericho and arrived in Bethany on Friday evening after sunset. From Friday evening after sunset to Saturday evening after sunset we have the Jews’ Sabbath. Jesus spent a very quiet Sabbath in Bethany. That evening He had supper in the house of Simon the leper, Matthew 26:6. Other guests included Lazarus, Martha and Mary his sisters, and also present were the twelve disciples. It was at this dinner that Mary anointed the feet of our Lord for His burial, John 12:3. On that same Sabbath afternoon many people had come out from Jerusalem because everyone was talking about our Lord Jesus Christ. Since the resuscitation of Lazarus from the dead people wanted to see Jesus and they wanted to see Lazarus, and word had passed through Jerusalem that they were together in Bethany, John 12:9. This caused envy on the part of the chief priests, the religious leaders of Israel, who held a conference to plot the death of our Lord, John 12:10-11. This crowd from Jerusalem formed the nucleus of the crowd that followed Jesus from Bethany toward Jerusalem on that first Palm Sunday.

The next day was Sunday, the Jewish first day of the week, Palm Sunday. That is where we pick up in Mark 11:1-9.

In verses 8-10 we have the reaction of two crowds. In verse 8 we have homage to the King in the terms of two phrases: “Many spread their garments in the road.” That was one thing they always did on the feast of the tabernacles. Now this is approaching the Passover; this is the week before the Passover; this is not the feast of the tabernacles. Then there was the recognition of the King; “while others spread palm branches in the road which they had cut in the fields.” The reason for this is instead of celebrating the Passover, they didn’t want the Passover, they wanted the feast of the tabernacles. They didn’t want the first advent, they wanted the second advent. So they were doing a very strange thing, they were trying to put the tabernacles out of place and put it in with the Passover. This is April, not October. They want to by-pass the cross because they want the crown. So they got into the Palm branch business because of all of the great prophecies regarding Christ the Branch. Christ is the God of Israel; Christ is the Son of David; Jesus Christ is the Branch who will come out of the stump of Jesse, Isaiah 11:1; Jeremiah 23:5,6; Zechariah 3:8; 6:12,13.

Also they did another very strange thing. They sang from their national anthem, verse 9, “and those who went before [the crowd coming from Jerusalem to meet Jesus], and those who followed after [the crowd from Bethany], were shouting, “Save us now!” not Hossana. In other words, “Ah Jehovah, save us now please.” And then they skipped “blessed is he who comes in the name of the Lord.” Notice: Hosanna means “save now,” what they wanted was deliverance, not salvation. They don’t want the cross. They are not saying “We want salvation,” they are saying “We want deliverance from the Roman empire.” The religious crowd wanted to control without interference from the Romans and so they immediately skip everything and go to the phrase, Psalm 118:25, the second advent phrase: “Blessed is he who comes in the name of the Lord.” And then they added: “Blessed is the coming kingdom of our father David.” That isn’t found in Psalm 118. They had been told to add that so that Christ would get rid of the Romans for them.

So the crowd distorted the scripture, they omitted two lines of the anthem. First of all they omitted the last line of Psalm 118:25, “O Lord, send us prosperity now.” This was what the Jews wanted but were afraid to mention it since there were Roman patrols on the road. They wanted historical prosperity, including freedom from the Roman government and administration. They wanted political and government reform apart from adjustment to the justice of God through salvation. They wanted everything without God’s plan, first advent and second advent. They wanted political reform but they didn’t want it in the plan of God.

There was a second phrase which they omitted. In Psalm 118:26, the second line, “We have blessed you from the house of the Lord.” This line is not quoted because it requires adjustment to the justice of God through salvation. How can you bless from the house of the Lord unless you are born again? is the point. The crowd had not accepted Christ as saviour, they had rejected Him as saviour. They wanted Him as the ruler of Israel, the Son of David. They wanted Him as a political figure, not as the source of eternal salvation. By the omission of these two lines Israel was saying they wanted the Millennium without the cross. The apostate Jews automatically rejected the first advent, they wanted religion rather than salvation. Religion always teams up with politics to destroy the issue. Political reform without spiritual adjustment is meaningless, useless, hopeless, a dead end.

Satan tried to tempt our Lord Jesus Christ to put the crown before the cross in Matthew chapter four, the unique temptation. Every temptation offered to our Lord in Matthew four was unique. They were temptations we will never have to face. Satan tried to keep our Lord from going to the cross in that chapter; the crowd on the first Palm Sunday tried the same thing, with Palm branches. In other words, these were palm branches out of place, that is why it is called Palm Sunday; it is religious Sunday.

So the issue is made clear: the cross must come before the crown. Man must adjust to God’s plan by faith in the Lord Jesus Christ. That is where it started. Naturally, our Lord did not appreciate what the crowd did and He went into the temple. What did He say? He gave a message, Mark 12:1-11. Verse 1, “He began to speak to them in parables.” Parables are the result of apostasy. As a result of the apostasy of Palm Sunday Jesus now appears to believers because a parable gives an outward literal sense of a matter but requires doctrine in the soul to make a proper application. Only the believers could understand this.

“A man” refers to God, the integrity of God, the plan of God, “planted a vineyard [Israel as a client nation to God, Isaiah 5:1-7], and put a wall around the vineyard [the divine protection of the client nation], and dug a vat under the wine press [the anticipation of production from the client nation, evangelisation in the nation, the spiritual growth of the believers in the nation, missionary activity from the nation], and built a tower [freedom through military victory], and rented it out to tenant farmers [the Jews of Israel] and went on a journey.”

Verse 2, “And at the harvest season he sent a servant [the Old Testament prophets] to the tenant farmers, that he might receive some production of the vineyard from these tenant farmers [the Jews of the client nation].”

Verse 3, Israel’s rejection of salvation meant their rejection of doctrine, which meant that generally there was a very small pivot. “And they took him, and beat him, and sent him away empty -handed”.

Verse 4, “And again he sent another servant [prophet or communicator of doctrine], and they wounded him in the head, and dishonoured him.”

Verse 5, “And he sent another, and that one they killed; and so many others, beating some, killing others,” the history of Israel down to the time of our Lord. One of the last to be killed was John the Baptist.

Verse 6, and then the first advent: “He had one more, a beloved son [Jesus Christ, first advent]; he sent him last of all, saying, ‘They will respect my son’.”

Verse 7, “But the tenant farmers [Jewish client nation] said to one another, ‘This is the heir; come, let us kill him, and the inheritance will be ours’.”

Verse 8, “And they seized him, and killed him, and threw him out of the vineyard.”

Our Lord is telling them what is going to happen next week! A week from the time our Lord uttered this message in the temple He would be resurrected.

Verse 9, “And what will the Lord of the vineyard do [to Israel as a client nation]? He will come and destroy [fifth cycle of discipline] the tenant farmers [Israel in AD 70], and will give the vineyard [client nation Israel] to others [Gentile nations].”

All of that is a parable, and now He says to them that this is the wrong time to be holding palm branches. “You are a little mixed up, you want the second advent without the first advent.” This is not the time for the palm branches, this is the time for the cross, for salvation.

Verse 10, then He says to them: “Have you not read this scripture [Psalm 118:22,23]:

‘The stone which the builders [Israel] rejected, this became the chief corner stone;

This came from the source of the Lord, and it is marvellous in our eyes’?”

In other words, He said that the first advent had to come first, this is not a time for palm branches, there can be no Millennial kingdom, there can be no future for Israel unless He went to the cross. Therefore Psalm 118:22,23 must precede what the crowd had been shouting while they held the palm branches in their hands. They reversed the order because they had rejected Christ as saviour, they had ignored the real issue. This is the difference between the true and the false Jew. The true Jew believes in Christ, receives Him as his personal saviour. The false Jew does not. The false Jew is manifest by holding a palm branch in his hand the week before Christ went to the cross.

The true Jew is that Tribulational martyr in Revelation 7:9. Many of these Tribulational martyrs were Jews, and how do we know? They had palm branches in their hands, they knew what was coming up next. They were on schedule, they could read correctly historical trends. The Jews of our Lord’s day could not because they did not accept Christ as saviour. The Jews of the Tribulation who believed in Christ are not only in their interim state but they’re in their interim state holding palm branches in their hands, indicating that they knew the schedule, that they were not confused like the Jews of Palm Sunday.

So now we can go back to our passage in Revelation chapter seven, understanding the last phrase of verse nine. These people are believers and they are able to understand the historical trend. They know that the next time that they will be on earth they will be there at the second advent. They are going to come to the wedding supper of the Lamb as the friends of the groom. They are holding palm branches in their interim body because they will be present in their resurrection body the next time they set foot on the earth with our Lord. Therefore the palm branches at the end of verse nine have great significance, and they have great application to us. We cannot read historical trends in the time in which we live unless we are first born again and, secondly, faithful to the Word of God.

There is one other thing before we leave verse 9, and that is the three categories of eternal life.

The doctrine of the three categories of eternal life

1. John 3:36 — “He that believeth on the Son hath eternal life; but he who does not believe on the Son shall not see [eternal] life, but the wrath of God abides in him”. Attitude toward Christ determines whether we have eternal life or not. To believe in Christ is eternal life. “Believeth [pisteuw]” is in the present tense. You have eternal life at the very moment that you believe in Christ.

2. Obviously then the believer has eternal life the very moment he puts his trust in the Lord Jesus Christ.

3. For the believer who experiences physical death, the person who dies physically in time, prior to resurrection, there are three categories of eternal life.

a. The believer has eternal life while living on the earth — temporal life-eternal life.

b. The believer has eternal life after death while living in heaven and waiting for his pertinent resurrection — interim life-eternal life.

c. The believer continues to have eternal life forever and ever in a resurrection body — resurrection body-eternal life.

4. For the believer who does not experience physical death but comes under the category of the mortal taking on immortality there are two categories of eternal life: category #1, temporal life-eternal life during the time that he lives on this earth; category #3, resurrection life-eternal life. This is because he doesn’t die physically. That would be the Rapture generation.

5. For each stage of eternal life there is a body. Category #1, temporal life-eternal life: the believer occupies the physical body of corruption with the old sin nature. Category #2, the interim life-eternal life: the believer has an interim body, a body which is perfect; no old sin nature, not subject to ailments, residing in heaven, in perfect happiness, and waiting for his resurrection body. Category #3, the resurrection life-eternal life. The believer occupies a resurrection body forever and ever.

6. Therefore eternal life exists in two or more categories of life. For the person who doesn’t die, two; for the person who dies, three.

7. Eternal life can only be possessed while the person lives on earth in temporal life. You cannot receive eternal life once you die. If you die an unbeliever, that is the last chance you have of getting eternal life. The only opportunity for salvation exists now, therefore eternal life always begins in time.

8. Therefore these categories do not apply to unbelievers, to the person who rejects Christ as saviour, John 3:18.

9. Eternal life belongs to the believer only and is never without a body.

10. Each category of eternal life reveals a new aspect of God’s perfect integrity and God’s perfect plan.

11. Only the interim life-eternal life, category #2, makes no distinction between winners and losers in the Christian life, and provides sublime happiness for every category of believer involved. In other words, there is no excuse for offering anything but the greatest of comfort to loved ones at a funeral.

Verse 10, the expression of their worship. We begin the sequential use of the conjunction kai, translated “then.” With this we have the present active indicative of the verb krazw which can mean to cry, to cry out, to shout. Here it means they shouted. “They shouted and said” is the idiomatic translation, but when krazw is used with is used with the instrumental adjective megaj and the noun fwnh, literally it means that they cried out with a loud voice. But the idiom simply means they shouted.

Then follows the circumstantial present active participle of the verb legw, translated “and said.” The expression of their worship was vocal. The voice expresses the thoughts of the frontal lobes, and since they are dead the fact that they can shout indicates that they have an interim body. The interim body definitely has vocal cords. The fact that their shout has content indicates that the soul resides in the interim body in the third heaven.

The content of their worship is now expressed. It begins with the generic use of the definite article h(. It is used with a noun which is regarded as a specific category of theology known as soteriology. It regards salvation as a category distinct from all other categories. The generic definite article may or may not be used in the translation. Here we do not translate it in the English. The generic definite article represents the whole realm of soteriology, but since soteriology becomes pertinent a little later on we will simply note in passing that this includes the doctrine of reconciliation which is that part of salvation which emphasises man. Man is reconciled to God through the work of Christ on the cross; or the doctrine of propitiation which is directed toward God. God the Father is propitiated by the work of Christ on the cross; or the doctrine of redemption which regards us as being in the slave market of sin and our freedom was purchased at the cross, and the coin of the realm is called the blood of Christ. Therefore, by faith we simply walk out of the slave market of sin; or the doctrine of atonement which regards salvation also from the standpoint of our sins being judged on the cross.

With this we have a dative of possession from qeoj and, of course, the dative of possession is a Greek idiom. The general possession connotation comes in the genitive. As a Greek idiom it has no equivalent in the English. The dative of possession is the dative of personal interest and it is particularised to the point of ownership. So we say: “to our God,” the possessive genitive of e)gw. In other words, this is an idiom and it should be correctly translated into the English, “salvation belongs to our God.” That is a reference to God the Father. God the Father is the author of the divine plan; God the Father is the author of salvation. It also emphasises that part of salvation known as propitiation. God the Father is propitiated or satisfied with the work of Christ on the cross. And inasmuch as He is satisfied with the work of Christ on the cross there is no work that we can add to salvation. When people seek to use some form of human works to gain salvation they become religious and religion is the devil’s ace trump. Christianity is not a religion. In religion man by man’s efforts seek to gain the approbation of God, but in Christianity it is the antithesis. God does the work of salvation and we enter into salvation by the expression of our positive volition in a non-meritorious way.

Next comes the articular present active participle from the verb kaqhmai which means to sit. It is translated, along with the prepositional phrase e)pi plus qronoj, “to him who sits on the throne.” “Salvation belongs to our God [God the Father] who sits on the throne.” This indicates the fact that Jesus Christ is visible as the God-Man but God the Father is invisible.

Then comes the dative of possession from a)rnion, correctly translated “Lamb.” The Lamb has a dual connotation: not only the saving work on the cross but an emphasis on His strategic victory of the angelic conflict. The dative of possession means that salvation belongs to Jesus Christ, the Lamb, as well. God the Father planned salvation but God the Son, the Lamb, executed the work of salvation on the cross. God the Holy Spirit reveals salvation to the human soul which is otherwise incapable of understanding spiritual phenomena as an unbeliever.

Corrected translation: “Then they shouted and said, Salvation belongs to our God [God the Father who planned it] who sits on the throne, and to the Lamb [God the Son who executed it in hypostatic union on the cross].”

One important fact about these Tribulational martyrs: they understand all the doctrines pertaining to salvation. They were not only saved by faith in Christ but they were exposed to very accurate evangelism. They were evangelised with Biblical facts, not with emotional nonsense. They not only understood the issues of salvation but they responded with personal decisions, faith in the Lord Jesus Christ. The message of salvation must be accurate if the ministry of God the Holy Spirit is to be accomplished. There must be accurate information that God the Holy Spirit can use.

The principle behind all of this is the principle of the book of Revelation. The book of Revelation is not designed to tell you what the stock market will do next Thursday. The purpose of the book of Revelation is to demonstrate not only what happens in history, an accurate historical text book from the closing of the canon of scripture, but it is the final testimony of our Lord Jesus Christ, Revelation 19:10. And it is a reminder to us not to be carried away with morbid curiosity but to relate them all to our Lord Jesus Christ, for the testimony of Jesus is the spirit of prophecy.

Verse 11, the worship of the elect angels which accompanies this cry given by the Tribulational martyrs. Here we have the classification of the worshippers.

We have a sequential conjunction again and it introduces an additional thought so we translate in “Furthermore.” With this we have the nominative masculine plural from paj, “Furthermore, all.” And then we have a parenthetical nominative plural from a)ggeloj, and with it the generic use of the definite article to comprehend a category. These are elect angels. “Furthermore, all the elect angels.” Then we have a pluperfect active indicative from the verb i(stemi, and the pluperfect is generally translated like the imperfect so we translate it, “Furthermore, all the elect angels were standing.” This is the intensive use of the pluperfect, it presents the reality of a fact which enables it to be presented with more force than the aorist would do but it is translated in the English by the imperfect. The active voice: elect angels produce the action of the verb. The indicative mood is declarative for the reality of the presence of elect angels in the throne room of the third heaven.

Then we have a dative singular from kukloj which is used as both an adverb and an improper preposition and it means “around.” With this we have qronoj again. Then we have another kai and we have a selection of elect angels who are going to be mentioned, “and around the angelic staff officers.” Those are the 24 “elders,” the presbuteroj. Then we have zwwn for the four angelic heralds.

Then we have the phrase, “they fell on their faces and worshipped God.” The aorist active indicative of piptw which means to fall, “falling on their faces.” The culminative aorist contemplates the action of the verb in its entirety but regards it from the viewpoint of existing results — the worship which will be studied in the next verse. The active voice: the elect angels in the throne room of the third heaven produce the action.

Note that the mental attitude of worship in any type of creature so involved, humility, gratitude, capacity for love, capacity for life and happiness, appreciation which comes from maximum knowledge of Bible doctrine. In other words, worship is fun if you know what it is all about. These attitudes are developed through the ministry of God the Holy Spirit, the perception of doctrine. In other words, residence and function inside of the divine dynasphere.

Principle

1. Every action of God, every grace policy of God, results in worship in heaven. [Not on earth because believers are ignorant of doctrine].

2. The elect angels worship in heaven when the 144,000 Jewish evangelists are sealed. They worship when the martyrs arrive. In other words, the importance of worship on earth because obviously anything that is done in heaven and can be done on earth gives great importance to that which can be accomplished on the earth. In other words, angels in heaven are worshipping right now, therefore if angels are worshipping and we are commanded to worship and we are told how to worship then obviously worship ought to be a part of our lives on this earth. And the fact that God has given us the privilege that angels do not have: when angels are operating on this earth they are passing our judgement, they are protecting you, they are functioning as your guardians, they have a lot of jobs but it doesn’t include worship. The only ones who can worship on earth in this phase of the angelic conflict are human beings.

3. The result in heaven is the worship of Tribulational martyrs because they are the beneficiaries of the great evangelistic thrust of the 144,000 Jewish evangelists. There is now a tremendous response to their ministry and we find Tribulational martyrs worshipping God along with elect angels.

4. The worship expressed by the converts of the 144,000 Jewish evangelists was the subject of the previous paragraph, verses 9-10. Added to the worship of these converts who have been martyred for their faith is the worship now expressed by elect angels of the throne room of God. In other words, the angels are going to show us. We are going to learn now from the prophecy how the angels worship in heaven.

5. The importance and classification of angelic worship has been previously noted, Revelation 5:11-14, preceded by the worship of the 24 angelic staff officers and the four angelic heralds, Revelation 5:8-10. Worship, therefore, is the normal expression on the part of born again creatures. It is the normal expression of personal love for God on the part of regenerate and elect creatures. Regenerate creatures refers to mankind; elect creatures refers to the saved angels. Needless to say, then, worship is the expression of creature personal love for God. The prerequisite for worship is salvation, after that the things that accompany salvation: the filling of the Holy Spirit, knowledge of Bible doctrine, positive volition toward the plan and the purpose of God, the experience of divine blessing as a believer [including divine deliverance], cognisance of divine faithfulness. After death, the possession of an interim body for blessing in heaven while waiting for the resurrection body. The real challenge to worship is while we are still living in the devil’s world.

The challenge to worship while living in the devil’s world [while we are still physically alive].

1. God has provided for all believers the necessary factors for worshipping God in time.

2. These include (in the Church Age) the commission of the royal priesthood — every believer is his own priest, the divine dynasphere with emphasis on gate one, the filling of the Spirit; gate three, genuine humility; gate four, perception and application of doctrine; gate five, love of God eventually parlayed into occupation with Christ (if you are positive); gate eight, the ultimate expression of worship in time. It is not emotional, it is rational.

3. Furthermore, worship takes time and the time for worship demands both the proper scale of values, both motivational and volitional.

4. Certain things are declared worship which are not generally recognised and accepted by orthodox Christianity. For example, concentration is a form of worship when you are concentrating on the teaching of the Word of God, perception of doctrine under the filling of the Spirit, submission to the teaching ministry of some pastor for learning the content of the Word.

5. In other words, worship is learning before loving God.

6. All expressions of worship are based on the application of Bible doctrine, whether the Eucharist or singing a hymn now and then, testifying or witnessing, giving.

7. The Eucharist has no meaning apart from understanding Christology and soteriology. In other words, ritual without reality is meaningless. The same holds true for any phase of worship.

That is why it says at the end of verse 11 “they fell down on their faces.” This indicates something very interesting: they had faces in heaven, e)pi plus the accusative plural of proswpon. Notice where the face is when you worship in heaven. It is not looking up, it is down. And then it says that they worshipped, the aorist active indicative of proskunew. The aorist tense is constative aorist, it contemplates the action of the verb in its entirety. The active voice: the elect angels in the throne room of God, including the 24 general staff officers and the four angelic heralds, produced the action. The declarative indicative is for reality. The dative singular indirect object of qeoj, they worshipped God.

Translation: “Furthermore all the elect angels were standing around the throne, and around the angelic staff officers [the 24 elders], and around the four angelic heralds. Then they fell on their faces before the throne and they worshipped God.”

The Christian way of life is the unique system in the plan of God throughout all the ages of human history for never in any other dispensation was the population of the world left without prophecy. The Church Age is the dispensation of no prophecy, all historical trends are determined by the attitude of the individual believer toward Bible doctrine. In all previous dispensations prophecy was used to express historical trends. After the Church Age is terminated with the Rapture or the resurrection of the Church never again will this type of life exist. This is the only dispensation in which the believer at the moment of salvation receives 36 things, the only dispensation in which the believer holds two commissions from God as of the moment of his salvation, the first being his priesthood and the second being his ambassadorship. The priesthood of the believer gives each one of us the opportunity of representing himself before the Lord, of living his own life as unto the Lord, whereas the ambassadorship gives each one of us the privilege as members of the royal family of God of representing our Lord Jesus Christ on this earth.

We continue from verse eleven by noting that human worship is the expression of the believer’s personal love for God. How can you personally love the invisible God? Through Bible doctrine. We see Him who is invisible through our understanding of Bible doctrine. As such it can only be expressed, then, inside of the divine dynasphere. And as the function of the royal priesthood inside of the divine dynasphere demands perception of Bible doctrine as a prerequisite it is impossible for anyone who is born again to truly worship God unless he resides in the divine dynasphere — that means the filling of the Spirit — and he has learned enough doctrine to actually personally love God. Personal love is only a virtue directed toward God.

While worship is the priestly function of the believer it is not a true function apart from the interlock of the first four gates of the divine dynasphere. Worship function, then, is personal love for God at gate five.

There is a principle behind worship. God is a spirit, which means He is invisible to us, and “those who worship Him must worship Him in Spirit,” i.e., in the power of God the Holy Spirit, gate one of the divine dynasphere, “and in doctrine,” gate four of the divine dynasphere. This combination gives us a personal love for God so that we can fulfil the principle, “having not seen we love.” Capacity for worship must precede the function of worship. You can only give what you have. If you as a believer have doctrine in your right lobe you can express worship commensurate with what you know about doctrine. If you have personal love for God from Bible doctrine you can express that in the various forms of worship, the most important form being concentration. If the believer can apply the doctrine of soteriology and Christology he can participate in the communion service linking the bread and the cup to the Lord’s first advent. If you have time — and all of us have time — you can give time in the assembly of the local church, in the listening to Bible doctrine, and even functioning in the various administrative and teaching aspects of the local church. If you have money you can give money but never give money unless motivated from doctrine.

Another principle of worship: everything we have belongs to the Lord and therefore everything we have is secure. When we part with what we have in worship, whether it is our energy in concentration under the ministry of the Spirit, or whether it is money, or some function in the local church, of whatever it is, these expressions of worship are recognised in heaven. And because worship simply expresses our love for the Lord we still have, and always will have, the object of our love. Personal love for God expresses itself in worship. If you do not have the filling of the Spirit, of course, it is all meaningless; the filling of the Spirit is as simple as your rebound.

In verse 11 the angels fell down and worshipped. There is a principle involved here. Every action of God, every grace policy of God results in some form of worship in heaven where they are so aware of these things. The point is that worship in heaven as described in the book of Revelation should be a challenge to our worship in time since we are given so much opportunity to do so. Therefore, of course, if worship in heaven is doing this then why not worship on earth? The elect angels worship in heaven when the 144,000 Jewish evangelists are sealed, and as a result there is great evangelism in the Tribulation. The result in heaven is the worship on the part of the Tribulational martyrs who were the beneficiaries of this great evangelistic thrust. The importance therefore of understanding worship in heaven and relating it to worship on earth presents a real challenge to us to utilise time in the devil’s world to fulfil the function of worship. The challenge to worship while living in the devil’s world is the central application of verse eleven. God has provided for all believers the necessary factors for worshipping God in time, and these include the commission of a royal priesthood — every believer is his own priest; the provision of the divine dynasphere with its gates.

Certain things are declared in worship which are generally recognised and accepted by all orthodox Christians: concentration and perception of doctrine under the filling of the Spirit, submission, therefore, to the teaching ministry of the pastor and the extrapolation of systematic theology from his messages. In other words, worship is learning before loving — learning doctrine before loving God. All expressions of worship are based upon the application of doctrine, whether in the Eucharist or singing or testifying, or giving, or any other form of legitimate worship.

Verse 12, we have the content of worship. The first thing we note about this verse is that we have the word “Amen” twice, the ritual of worship. But not just ritual in itself because the word means to believe. “Amen” is used in liturgy of worship but it is also for the purpose of a solemn declaration.

So we begin by noting the present active participle of the verb legw, and with it we have the Greek a)mhn, taken from the Hebrew amen. It means that now that we have brought together some of the concepts of worship that we have noted in other chapters as well as in verse 11 we are now ready to see the ultimate expression of worship in heaven. And what we see is something we can apply and we can use provided, of course, we understand. This is a futuristic present tense in the participle, it denotes a worship event which has not yet occurred in the third heaven but is regarded as so certain that in thought it is contemplated as already occurring. The active voice: the elect angels perform this worship in conjunction with the Tribulational martyrs and they do so for our benefit. Here is a future worship that hasn’t occurred yet but we are going to benefit from studying it. This is a circumstantial participle best rendered into English with the conjunction plus the finite verb.

Verse 12, the first phrase we have translated: “And they said, Amen.” While worship includes emotional response it emphasises doctrinal thinking. Therefore it is necessary to know what you are saying or expressing in worship. The content of worship is thought, and not only thought but doctrinal thinking. This thought, of course, is related to our love for God. All bona fide worship is based on cognisance of Bible doctrine and its expression in the power and the filling of the Spirit. The key to worship, then, is personal love for the invisible God. There is no personal love for God apart from perception of doctrine and neither born again believer of the human race nor elect angel can enter into the true meaning of worship apart from knowledge of God which is knowledge of Bible doctrine. Again, cognisance of Bible doctrine, the revelation of God is necessary for the function of true worship. The expression of personal love of God in worship simply cannot exist apart from the ministry of God the Holy Spirit, John 4:24. While this worship is expressed in the throne room of the third heaven, as we have noted, the real issue in the angelic conflict is the expression of worship on earth. The true expression of worship glorifies God and therefore the function of worship in heaven becomes the pattern for worship on earth. This is the eschatological implication of the expression of worship which follows.

What follows in verse 12 are the seven characteristics which are ascribed to God as an expression of worship in heaven, and therefore to be used in that sense as far as we are concerned, with one exception.

“And they said, Amen,” and then we begin a new phrase, and in this new sentence we have seven characteristics of worship. The first is found in the Greek word e)ulogia which means praise, noble speech, and while blessing is rarely the meaning in Classical Greek it does find that meaning in the Koine Greek. The best translation would be either praise or blessing, blessing and praise belong to God. Note that in each case there is a definite article but the definite article is generic and therefore not translated since it simply declares a category of worship. In giving to God praise you have to have the ability to do so, you have something about which to praise Him. Praise means understanding God.

The next word, doca, “and glory,” is the second category of worship. This is the category which is impossible for us to give, it belongs to the angelic creatures and those who are in heaven. People in heaven can fulfil this; people on earth cannot. This is a category that the angelic creatures in heaven can give because of their eternal relationship with God. The have glory, therefore they can give glory to God.

The third category is described in the word sofia, correctly translated “wisdom.” However, when you get to wisdom you have to understand that this wisdom is related to God. This is not human wisdom, this is wisdom which belongs to God. In order to fulfil this aspect of worship today we have to understand the divine attribute of God’s knowledge. Worship centres around the wisdom of God. Our lives depend upon God’s wisdom; we are here because God is wise. We are blessed in times of adversity because God is wise.

It all begins with the fact that there are three aspects to divine knowledge. First of all there is God’s self-knowledge. Since God is eternal this means that His knowledge is eternal. Since God is sovereign it means that in His sovereignty, related to His knowledge, He is infinitely superior to any wise person who has ever lived. That includes the angelic realm as well as the human. The difficult thing for us to understand is the fact that time has absolutely nothing whatever to do with God’s wisdom. Our understanding and whatever wisdom we may accumulate simply is related to time. The future is as perspicuous as the past to God. In fact the past and the future were known to God before they existed. Since God is a person He possesses both self-consciousness and self-determination in relationship to His self-knowledge. Therefore God as a person acts rationally and in compatibility with His absolute will and perfection. In other words, God is Himself and He knows Himself to be beyond comparison with any human being or any creature of any kind. Because God is infinite His knowledge has neither boundary nor limitation. Everything that will ever be knowable in human history and everything that is knowable in angelic history was known to God billions of years ago. And what does this mean? If God’s knowledge is perfect it becomes important for us to be related to it in our daily lives. The wisdom of God has been reduced to writing for us, something that other generations in the past have not had. Because God is infinite His knowledge is without boundary or limitation. Therefore God’s knowledge is never complicated with ignorance, absurdities, stupidities, or emotional reaction.

In worship the wisdom of God becomes simply an expression of your understanding of how God has laid out the plan for you and for me for blessing, for great happiness, for a meaningful life. The only blessing we can have in life is what we can extrapolate from His perfect knowledge through perception of Bible doctrine. The issue in worship is omniscience, God’s knowledge of everything that has ever happened or ever will.

“And they said, Amen.” This is a liturgical Amen and it follows a definite pattern. E)ulogia is the first, praise belongs to God. You cannot praise someone whom you do not understand, therefore the understanding of God is the most basic concept of worship. Secondly, there is glory. You can’t give glory to God until you are in that category for doing so which we have previously noted. Then there is wisdom. We can worship Him on the basis of understanding something of His wisdom. The wisdom which belongs to God is the total sum of His knowledge, the knowledge of God is manifest in the doctrine of divine decrees.

The next category of worship comes under the word e)uxaristia which means gratitude or thankfulness. When people are not grateful in life you can count on it that they are not grateful to God. The thing that destroys gratitude and therefore capacity for life is arrogance. People who are preoccupied with themselves have no capacity to appreciate others. For the new believer thanksgiving or gratitude begins with God’s faithfulness in logistical grace provision. One of the first things we must understand as new believers is logistical grace and the logistical grace rationale. The application of the logistical grace rationale toward man is obvious — the faith-rest drill. The application of the logistical grace rationale toward God is the worship of thanksgiving. For the mature believer thanksgiving or gratitude continues with God’s faithfulness in the provision of supergrace blessing. Capacity for gratitude increases with perception of Bible doctrine.

Next is timh, “honour.” Then comes dunamij, correctly translated “power.” In this dispensation dunamij refers to the divine dynasphere, God’s game plan for the believer. In the Tribulation it refers to other sources of power available to the believer under the circumstances of historical disaster. Dunamij always means God has provided a plan for your life and choosing that plan inevitably leads to fantastic blessing in a place where blessing should technically not occur, in the devil’s world in time.

The next is i)sxuj, another synonym for power. It means strength, might, power, ability. When used in a doxology, as here, it emphasises the eternal being and the attributes of God.

“And they said, Amen: Praise, and glory, and wisdom, and gratitude [thanksgiving], and honour, and power, and ability [divine attributes]… ”

And then we have the final phrase. It is an idiom all the way, none of it can be translated literally, to qeo h(mon e)ij touj a)iwnaj ton a)iwnon. A)mhn. If it was translated literally it would be “to our God, to the ages of the ages. Amen.” And that isn’t what it means at all. It is simply an idiom which means “to our God forever and ever. Amen.” The idiom has the dative of possession and we translate it, “belongs to our God forever and ever. Amen.”

Corrected translation of verse 12, “And they said, Amen: Praise, and glory, and wisdom, and gratitude [thanksgiving], and honour, and power, and ability [divine attributes], belong to our God forever and ever. Amen. ”

The fact that angels were uttering this worship does not in any way detract from the fact that we can derive great information from it.

That brings us to a new paragraph in verses 13 and 14 where we have the identification of the Tribulational martyrs. This becomes very important because in chapter eight we are going to see the answer to their imprecatory prayers. Verse 13 provides the question; verse 14 will provide the answer.

Verse 13, we have the adjective numeral e(ij, meaning “one.” With this we have the partitive genitive from the noun presbuteroj which refers to a category of angels. There are 24 of them and they are a part of the angelic general staff. Translation: “Then one of the angelic staff officers” — “answered,” the aorist passive indicative of the verb a)pokrinomai which means to answer, to reply, and even to respond. It is not necessarily preceded by a question expressed but is a reply to a reaction in the context. You will note that while this is translated “answered” or “responded” there was no question, therefore this is simply a reaction to the content of worship. The constative aorist tense contemplates the action of the verb in its entirety. The passive voice: this is a deponent verb, passive in form, active in meaning, one of the angelic staff officers who already knows the answer is the one who is given answer. This is a part of wisdom itself: when you know the answer but listen to the answer again you are a wise creature. The indicative mood is declarative for a simple statement of fact.

With this we have a present active participle of legw, a circumstantial participle translated “and said.” Then we have the dative singular indirect object from e)gw which brings us back to the human writer of Revelation, John. It is correctly translated, “and said to me.” The dative indirect object indicates the one, the apostle John, as the human writer of the book of Revelation, and it is in his interest that the question is asked.

Then we have the answer. Instead of finding the question we have first of all the answer. The nominative plural is of the immediate demonstrative o(utoj, “these.” He wants to know who these human creatures are. “These” he starts out. He doesn’t start out with a question, Who are these? He starts out in the Greek saying, “These who are wearing white robes,” the articular perfect passive participle of the verb periballw, correctly translated “wearing.” The perfect tense is an intensive perfect, it dramatises what has been said here, hence the dramatic perfect tense which emphasises the existing state. These angels who have been worshipping God for a long time are amazed to see in their presence now those who are not angels but members of the human race. Furthermore, they are not yet in their resurrection bodies, they are in the interim bodies. The dramatic perfect emphasises the results of the action, therefore the results of their martyrdom is the perfect happiness enjoyed at this time. Who are these happy people? The interim body, described in verse 9 as “white robes, is a body of great happiness, there is no distinction between winner and loser.

Therefore the dramatic perfect which emphasises the results of the action and as a result of their martyrdom they now have perfect happiness in heaven. The passive voice: the Tribulational martyrs receive the action of the verb, an interim body in heaven while waiting for their resurrection bodies. The participle is circumstantial expressing the attendant circumstances of their martyrdom, the possession of an interim body and great happiness after their death. The interim body is described by the accusative plural direct object composed of two words, the adjective leukoj, “white,” and the noun stolh, “robe.” So they are wearing white robes, the interim body.

Now we have the actual question: the nominative masculine plural from the interrogative pronoun tij, who,” “these who are wearing white robes, who are they?” With it we have the present active indicative of the verb e)imi. This is the pictorial present tense, here are all of the human beings in heaven and, who are they? “and from where have they come?” is the last phrase in verse 13.

Translation: “Then one of the angelic staff officers responded, and said to me [he knows the answers, he is simply doing this for our sake], These who are wearing the white robes, who are they? and from where have they come?”

Poqen is the interrogative adverb, “from where,” plus the aorist active indicative of e)rxomai, “have they come.” The aorist tense is a constative aorist contemplating the action of the verb in its entirety, referring to a fact or action extended over the period of the Tribulation. The active voice: the question is about Tribulational martyrs, and this is an interrogative indicative which assumes that there is an answer to the actual question.

The plan of God for the believer in the Lord Jesus Christ is basically the same in every dispensation. The only exception is the Church Age where God has provided a more detailed opportunity in the power plant of the divine dynasphere. Rank has its privileges and one of the privileges of the royal family of God is to live in a time when it is easier than any other time in history to live the spiritual life, the plan of God for time.

The doctrine of imputation

— the function of the justice of God toward mankind and related to the plan of God for mankind. Imputation functions as an act of condemnation or blessing.

There are two kinds of imputations: a real imputation and a judicial imputation. In a real imputation the justice of God imputes under the principle of antecedents or affinity. In other words, in a real imputation there are two factors. Factor one: what is imputed to factor two with which it has affinity. Factor one: what is imputed from the justice of God; factor two: the home or the target for the imputation. In other words, there is an affinity between the two factors.

In a judicial imputation the justice of God imputes what is not antecedently one’s own. In other words, in a judicial imputation you have factor X imputed without affinity, there is no real affinity, there is no home or target for the imputation. Therefore there is only one factor which is in existence, that which is being imputed. Consequently great emphasis is placed on the source of judicial imputation which is always the integrity of God.

The seven imputations in the plan of God are primarily related to the Church Age. They also have application to believers in the Tribulation. But you never start with the believer. The first imputation in history is the imputation of human life immediately after birth to its target which is the human soul. This is a real imputation, it has two factors: factor one is human life. We receive human life, it was given to us at birth or, you might say, after birth. There is no human life in the womb. God imputed human life in each case. The fact that God imputes human life to its home or the target, the soul, after birth implies that God has a plan for every member of the human race. Whether that plan is realised or not depends entirely upon the volition of the individual.

The life that is imputed to the human soul resides there forever. There is no cessation of life in the human soul. That is true in time as well as in eternity. Human life is in the soul. At physical death the soul leaves the body and goes to its designated place, heaven or Hades. In other words, when God imputes human life and it resides in the soul forever it is indestructible. There is nothing man can to do to separate the life from the soul and that includes suicide. Furthermore, even God Himself cannot and will not separate human life from the soul. God made the imputation. The fact that you and I have life is a gift from God.

Conclusion from the first imputation: God has a plan for your life; God has a plan for every person, and only negative volition at the point of God-consciousness and gospel hearing can hinder the fulfilment of that plan. Simultaneously there is a second imputation that occurs. Imputation number one: human life is imputed to the human soul, therefore human life resides in the soul forever. Imputation number two: Adam’s original sin is imputed to its home, its target, the genetically-formed old sin nature. There is affinity between human life and the soul; there is affinity between Adam’s sin and the old sin nature since Adam’s original sin is the origin of the old sin nature. The justice of God takes Adam’s original sin and imputes it directly to that to which it has affinity, the genetically-formed old sin nature. Just as there is affinity between life and the soul so there is affinity between Adam’s original sin and the old sin nature. Romans 5:12 gives us the fact that Adam’s original sin is the original old sin nature. Adam’s original sin is the origin, it created, as it were, the old sin nature. Therefore there is an affinity with antecedents dating back to the original sin of the Garden of Eden.

While the woman was just as guilty she was deceived in the transgression and therefore her sin is not the basis for that imputation, it is Adam’s sin. The old sin nature originated, then, from Adam’s sin because Adam knew exactly what he was doing and it is now transmitted to 23 male chromosomes which fertilise the female ovum at the point of copulation. The female ovum has 23 perfect chromosomes; the male has 23 sinful, imperfect chromosomes. The imputation of Adam’s original sin to the old sin nature is a facsimile of Adam at the time of his fall. This is a real imputation because it has two factors. Factor one: Adam’s original sin; factor two the old sin nature which is genetically-formed from the 23 male chromosomes. Therefore, human birth or the beginning of human life consists of two simultaneous imputations from the justice of God. This is the wisdom of God for condemnation must precede salvation, and because of that anyone who doesn’t have the opportunity of personally believing in Christ — they die too soon, they do not reach accountability — is already condemned. They were condemned at birth and that condemnation of Adam’s original sin, being imputed to the genetically-formed old sin nature, guarantees that if they die before reaching accountability they automatically go to heaven because condemnation must precede salvation. There is no need for salvation apart from condemnation.

So the imputation of Adam’s sin at birth is the basis also for spiritual death — Romans 5:12-21. No one is condemned on the basis of his personal sins, and that becomes a very important factor. In Romans 6:23 it says. “The wages of sin is death.” That means that at the moment of birth Adam’s original sin was imputed to the genetically-formed old sin nature. Notice: Personal sins are not the basis for the wages of sin. Personal sin is a reality but the thing that condemns us is the imputation of Adam’s sin.

The wisdom of God is quite obvious here because those who die after child birth are automatically saved. Those who die before accountability are automatically saved and those who never reach accountability because of some mental deficiency are automatically saved. That is because they were condemned before any of these factors became a reality.

The imputation of Adam’s sin at birth is the basis of spiritual death. No one is condemned on the basis of his personal sins and that means that all personal sins are not judged by God when they occur because they were all judged at one time, at the cross. They were reserved for the cross. All personal sins were imputed to Christ on the cross and that is when God judged them. That is the basis for the saving work of Christ on the cross, and that is a spiritual death, not a physical death. Christ died physically because His work of spiritual death was completed. So the non-imputation of personal sins to the individual reserved them for the cross. Therefore personal sins is not the basis for spiritual death, it is simply one of three manifestations of the old sin nature. Hence, we are born physically alive [the imputation of human life] and spiritually dead [the imputation of Adam’s sin]. These are the two imputations at birth.

There is one exception to this, the birth of the humanity of Christ. All the cells of the human race are contaminated by the old sin nature. There is only one exception and that exists through meiosis and the function of polar body. Through the function of meiosis and the function of polar body there are 23 chromosomes which are thrown off in the ovum leaving 23 uncontaminated chromosomes in the female ovum prior to fertilisation. These 23 uncontaminated chromosomes are free from the cell contamination of the old sin nature. This phenomenon in the female is based on the fact that the woman was deceived in the first transgression — but was still guilty. While both the man and the woman are carriers of the old sin nature only the man can transmit the old sin nature through fertilisation of the female ovum. But should the woman receive 23 uncontaminated chromosomes, i.e., virgin pregnancy, then the one who is born is born with the imputation of human life to the soul, but minus the imputation of Adam’s sin because there is no genetically-formed old sin nature. The old sin nature is formed genetically through the 23 male chromosomes.

Mary was a virgin when she became pregnant but she still had an old sin nature. She was not sinless. The virgin pregnancy was induced by God the Holy Spirit who fertilised the ovum of Mary with 23 perfect chromosomes. If that had not occurred then there would be no salvation. Jesus Christ had to come into the world without sin, He cannot bear the sins of the world if He has any sin of His own. If Adam’s original sin had been imputed to Christ at birth it would have to be imputed to the genetically-formed old sin nature. But a virgin pregnancy knocked out the genetically-formed old sin nature. The 23 chromosomes came from God the Holy Spirit. He produced them and fertilised the ovum. In the meiosis and polar body there were 23 uncontaminated chromosomes there, so the virgin pregnancy resulted.

At the moment of birth our Lord entered into the prototype divine dynasphere, designed for His protection but not to keep His volition from normal function. By living for 33 years inside the prototype divine dynasphere He was able not to sin, and because He was God He was not able to sin. Jesus Christ was tempted far beyond any human being who ever lived. He resisted so that He could go to the cross and bear our personal sins and be judged for them.

There is a third imputation. All the sins of the world were judged at the cross, the ones of the past and the ones of the future. They were all imputed and judged. But there wouldn’t be any Lord to believe in had He committed one sin, which He did not.

Men and women both have an old sin nature but the reason women have one is because they have a human father. The old sin nature is received through the man. Jesus Christ is the exception because of the virgin pregnancy.

Human good and evil could have been imputed as well since they are manifestations of the old sin nature but this did not happen. They were rejected at the cross so that human good and evil can continue to be an issue in history. Only sin was judged at the cross.

The second judicial imputation is the one which is described in 2 Corinthians 5:21 — “For he [the Father] made him [Christ] who knew no sin to be sin on our behalf, that we might become the righteousness of God in him.” All blessing that comes to the believer in any dispensation comes because of judicial imputation number two. In judicial imputation number two there is no antecedence, just as in number one. In judicial imputation number one our sins are imputed to Christ on the cross and judged. In judicial imputation number two God takes one half of His holiness or integrity [composed of His justice and righteousness] that is, His perfect righteousness, and at the moment that we believed in Christ He imputed that righteousness to us. By imputing that righteousness to us He set up the great pipeline. The justice of God is on one end and the righteousness of God is on the other end, the righteousness of God now indwelling us. All blessing of any category is imputed to us, not because we have lovely personalities, not because we live a good clean life, not because we give money to the church, not because we do any form of good deed, but because we have His righteousness. All blessing comes down this pipeline from the justice of God to the righteousness of God, and the blessings increase as we go from ignorance of doctrine to cognisance of doctrine because cognisance of doctrine increases our capacity and, therefore, because of an increased capacity God can bless us without destroying us. If God gave us everything we wanted right now it would destroy us. We would self-destruct without capacity.

This imputation makes possible the believer becoming the recipient of tremendous blessings from God. It also makes it possible for God to love the believer. That is because God loves His own righteousness. We possess His righteousness, God loves us. Grace, then, is the policy of the justice of God in imputing blessing to the righteousness of God. The principle is always the same: righteousness demands righteousness, justice demands justice; what the righteousness of God demands the justice of God executes. All of this is based on the fact that we have received at the moment of salvation this fantastic imputation.

The imputation of divine righteousness, the second judicial imputation, is also true in the Tribulation. This imputation of divine righteousness which sets up logistical grace blessing and supergrace blessing is the subject in the middle of Revelation 7:14.

Verse 14, the whiteness of the robe is the interim body for these believers of the Tribulation are martyrs and in heaven; the washing of the robe is +R.

We start with the connective conjunction kai which introduces a consequence of what precedes, “Consequently.” Then we have the perfect active indicative from legw, “I said,” followed by the dative singular indirect object from a)utoj, “to him.” The vocative follows, the vocative singular of kurioj. Kurioj can be translated “lord” when deity is involved; when humanity is involved “sir” is better, “Consequently I said to him, Sir [or My Lord],” and with it we have the genitive from mou, “My lord,” the one that belongs to me. Then we have the perfect o)ida used as a present active indicative and it is translated “you know.” The pronoun “you,” su , refers to someone on the angelic general staff. There are 24 elders or staff officers in the angelic order of battle. Obviously the question was not asked for his benefit because the angelic general staff know the answer. The question is inserted by the angelic staff officers to John for the purpose of amplification and clarification. The point is, we must know. It should be noted that the vocative of curio, the genitive from e)gw, “My lord,” is a term of respect and recognition of his authority for this staff officer is teaching John this part of the book of Revelation. John as a human being recognises the order of rank in the army of elect angels. The angelic staff officer, one of 24 elders, is obviously a keen observer of human history and in his wisdom he anticipates the need for clarification. Therefore he asks the question of John, not for his sake but for your sake and for mine, the generation of believers who would live during the Church Age and require an expanded answer. After all, the book of Revelation was written for us as royal family of God, not for the believers of the Tribulation, not for Millennial believers. This is what is said in Revelation 22:16, “I Jesus, have sent my angels to testify to you these things [the content of Revelation] for the churches. I am the root and offspring of David, the bright morning star.” Note that this is addressed to the churches. Cf.. Revelation 19:10.

We are studying a lost battalion of people in the future, people whose lives are very significant, people who are going to have maximum impact in a short period of time between their personal faith in Jesus Christ and the day they are martyred by one of the many trends of the Tribulation. They only have a short time to glorify the Lord and they succeed. They also have a tremendous prayer life, they pray that God will bring vengeance on those who destroy them, and God will, chapter eight. They have a very short spiritual life on earth and a relatively short interim life before they receive their resurrection bodies. But the point is: it isn’t how long you live or it isn’t how short you live that is the issue, it is how much happiness and blessing and dynamic impact you have during that time. When you live too long and stretch it out day after day, month after month, year after year, unless you are really with doctrine you are going to have wide emotional swings between success on the one hand, boredom on the other, and you are going to be looking for your capacity for life. Some of you may have already had success and yet your success is meaningless because you are really not happy.

We are studying a rather phenomenal group of people, the first converts of the evangelism of the Tribulation. We have already noted in chapter six under the fifth seal where they offered their imprecatory prayers, now we are studying them under other conditions. These people are the victims of historical disaster in the Tribulation but since there are no accidents in the life of any believer they are recorded in a very significant way. The dynamics of their dying is only exceeded by the dynamics of their imprecatory prayers and the fantastic time they have in heaven in their interim bodies. So they are standing before the throne and before the Lamb, and they are wearing white robes — the interim body in heaven after death — and palm branches in their hands. The palm branches signify their anticipation of their resurrection bodies and the Millennial reign of our Lord Jesus Christ.

Verse 14, the verse where all of these things come together. “ … These are they [the martyrs] who have come out of the great Tribulation, furthermore they have washed their robes...”

This is where we pick it up: the present active indicative of e)imi, “these are,” these people exist, these people have purpose. There never has been a person in the human race for whom God didn’t have a purpose. Human life is imputed by God the Father and therefore life has purpose, meaning and definition. If this becomes obscure then it is because of negative volition.

With this we have articular present middle participle from the verb e)rxomai, “these are they who have come.” The retroactive progressive present denotes what has happened in the past and continues into the present [i.e. the present of the Tribulation]. It is translated by the English perfect tense, and the fact that it is retroactive progressive present means it has application to us even as it is an historical fact of the future, therefore a prophecy. The middle voice: the subject acts with a view toward participating in the results of the action, hence the direct middle. This is what is called the participle of simultaneous action with the main verb e)imi and therefore translated: “these [martyrs] are they which have come out.” Then we have the great Tribulation, e)k plus the ablative of megaj and qliyij. Qliyij means tribulation and can apply to any period of disaster in history but with megaj it refers to a dispensation, Daniel’s seventieth week which occurs after the Rapture of the Church and terminates with the second advent of Christ. Coming out means they died, and even though they died violent deaths they died without any pain. E)rxomai indicates that.

At this point three factors are found in the last phrase of this verse. Factor one: the imputed divine righteousness in time. At the moment we believe in Christ God’s righteousness is imputed. Second factor: the interim body of eternity after death. The third factor: the saving work of Christ at the first advent. These three things are designed to make life in time liveable and, in fact, extremely happy regardless of circumstances. Add to that the fact that as soon as we die we have an interim body and great happiness, and all of this because of the saving work of Christ. These three are brought together in the last phrase.

The first of the factors: the blessing of imputed righteousness in time, the connective kai provides additional information and is translated “furthermore.” Then we have the aorist active indicative of the verb plunw which means to wash, “furthermore they have washed.” The culminative aorist tense views the Tribulational believer’s salvation through faith in Christ in its entirety. In other words, it gathers it up into one entirety the moment that these people believed in the Lord Jesus Christ, but it regards it from the viewpoint of its existing results. Therefore the culminative aorist emphasises this part of the entity. In other words, the result is the imputation of divine righteousness. To every believer in the Tribulation, as to us in this dispensation, as to all believers in the past, e.g. Abraham believed in the Lord and it was imputed to him for righteousness.” It is therefore the existing results of the imputation of divine righteousness and, of course, the resultant justification at that moment. At that moment we are justified because when we receive the imputation of God’s righteousness, we also receive the imputation of eternal life and we are justified or vindicated in God’s sight.

The second factor is the fact that the justice of God is one half of divine integrity, His perfect righteousness is the other half, and that imputation sets up the pipeline for all blessing in time. There are two categories of blessing here: one is the logistical grace blessing, the other is supergrace blessing. So the justice of God imputes to these Tribulational saints through divine righteousness all of these blessings whether they earned it, deserve it, or not they receive it. That is logistical grace. The active voice: the Tribulational believer produces the action of the verb: through the imputation of divine righteousness at the moment of salvation he is “washed.” The washing is the imputation of divine righteousness and its implication. The indicative mood is declarative for a dogmatic statement of doctrine, in fact a dogmatic statement of several doctrines. What is washed is said to be the robes, the accusative plural direct object from stolh. With it is the possessive genitive of the intensive pronoun a)utoj, the intensive pronoun used as the third person pronoun and translated “their,” “furthermore, they washed their robes,” the imputation of divine righteousness at the moment of salvation. This means imputation and, therefore, justification, the imputation of divine righteousness; it also sets up the system for logistical grace blessing. The principle of logistical grace support is the imputation of provision from the justice of God to the righteousness of God. Hence, the imputation of divine righteousness not only means salvation but it means grace provision, everything that they will need to handle the situation in the Tribulation. The washing of the robes refers to the imputation of God’s righteousness at the moment they believe in Christ. Hence, this phrase emphasises salvation in time plus God’s faithfulness to each one of these believers in time.

The second category is the blessing of the interim body in eternity. They were “washed” at salvation; they now have a white robe, the aorist active indicative of leukainw, which means to make white, “and they have made them white.” The constative aorist contemplates the action of the verb in its entirety, it takes the fact of the interim body extended over the portion of time from their death to their resurrection. The active voice: the Tribulational martyrs produce the action of the verb in their interim body. The white robe or the interim body is previously noted in Revelation 6:11. The indicative mood is declarative for the reality of the interim body after their martyrdom. The fifth seal of the Doomsday book of the Tribulation, Revelation 6:9-11, describes this same interim status.

With this we have the accusative plural direct object of a)utoj, again it is the intensive pronoun and it refers to the interim body, it is translated “them,” “they have made them white.” This is the interim body after death.

Finally we have the saving work of Christ on the cross. This is mentioned in one prepositional phrase at the end of verse fourteen, e)n [by] plus the instrumental from the noun a(ima [blood], “by means of the blood.” Then we have a descriptive genitive from the noun a)rnion, correctly translated “of the Lamb,” “by means of the blood of the Lamb.” This emphasises the sacrifice of Christ on the cross. When instead of explaining detail propitiation or reconciliation or redemption or imputation, you want to cover salvation very briefly, the word “blood” is used.

Corrected translation of verse 14: “Consequently I said to him, My Lord [the teaching angel], you know. Then he said to me, These are they who have come out of the great Tribulation, furthermore they have washed their robes [the moment of faith in Christ], and they [the Tribulational martyrs] have made them white by means of the blood of the Lamb [the saving work of Christ on the cross].”

The word “blood”is one of the more misunderstood words in the Bible. Sometimes blood is literal, sometimes it is figurative, and therefore the literal and the figurative use of blood becomes a very important subject.

There are three figurative uses of water in the Bible and there is one figurative use of blood. For example, in the use of water salvation is used in Isaiah 55:1; Revelation 22:7. Water is used for the Holy Spirit in John 7:37-39; water is used for the Word of God in Ephesians 5;26 and 1 John 5:8. So when we come to passages such as 1 John 5 and also where it says they pierced our Lord’s side with a spear and out came blood and water, both the water and the blood have literal significance there. There is one figurative use of blood and that is a reference to the spiritual death of Christ on the cross, but our Lord also physically bled on the cross and that is literal blood. So the literal blood of Christ refers to His physical or his somatic death on the cross — 1 John 5:6. Blood here is literal and it refers to blood in the human body after death, and it is a reference to our Lord’s somatic death on the cross. John 19:34, one of the soldiers pierced His chest cavity [the Greek word pleura, the word from which we get pleurisy, means chest cavity not His side]. This is important because this indicates that our Lord died physically.

In John 19:30 our Lord did not bow His head as it says in the King James version, He pushed His head forward, and that was so the Roman spear would penetrate His chest cavity and not just His diaphragm. This was demonstration of the fact that our Lord died physically. This is literal blood, not the blood we have at the end of verse 14 where it says “by means of blood our Lord saved us”. That isn’t talking about the blood and serum that came out after the Roman soldier penetrated His chest cavity with a spear. In John 19:30, “When Jesus, therefore, had received the wine he said, ‘It is finished’ [salvation was completed while He was alive],” and that is where the spiritual blood of Christ comes in.

In John 19:33-34, “but coming to Jesus, when they saw that he was already dead they did not break his legs; but one of the soldiers pierced his chest cavity with a spear, and immediately there gushed out blood clots and serum.” This demonstrated that the true humanity of Christ was dead and that He did not bleed to death on the cross. When a person dies from excessive loss of blood these blood clots and serum do not form. So there was and is the literal blood of Christ but it has no direct relationship to His saving work on the cross. Therefore the blood clots and serum is not only a witness to the true humanity of Christ in hypostatic union but at the same time medical proof that our Lord did not bleed to death. But it must be remembered that He did bleed from His hands and feet before the blood coagulated and this means that the literal blood of Christ is always associated with His physical death on the cross which we simply call His somatic death. His literal blood was still in His corpse and gushed out when the chest cavity was pierced from the Roman spear.

The blood that we have in our passage in revelation 7:14 refers to the spiritual blood of Christ, the saving work of Christ on the cross. It relates back to the animal sacrifices where the literal blood of an animal was used to portray the saving work of Christ on the cross.

The death which is involved in verse 14 when it says “by means of the blood of the Lamb” refers to our Lord’s spiritual death on the cross. This death is related to the figurative blood of Christ which refers to His saving work on the cross. Just as sins were imputed to the animal on the altar in the Old Testament so all the sins of the human race were imputed to Christ on the cross and judged by God the Father. Cf.. 1 John 1:7 which is a reference to rebound and a reference to the figurative blood of Christ, a reference to His spiritual death on the cross, because the work of Christ on the cross bearing our sins and being judged for them has a dual connotation. It is the basis of eternal salvation and afterward it is the basis for all rebound. When we name our sins or cite our sins, which is what “confess” [o(mologew] means, “he is faithful and just to forgive us our sins and to cleans us from all unrighteousness” because we are citing or naming to God a sin which has already been judged. That is the basis of rebound. So the judgement of our sins on the cross is the basis of our so great salvation and it is also the basis for recovery of fellowship, recovery of the divine dynasphere, the rebound technique. And the judgement of our sins on the cross is described under the term “the blood of Christ” or, as we saw it in the Greek, ai(ma.

When redemption is discussed as a doctrine it is also related to blood: “in whom we have redemption through his blood”, says Ephesians 1:7. This is figurative blood referring to Christ’s spiritual death on the cross. Cf. Revelation 1:5; 1 Peter 1:18. The figurative blood of Christ refers to His saving work on the cross, His spiritual death. The literal blood of Christ refers to His physical or somatic death on the cross because His work of the first advent was finished. Hence, the blood describes both the spiritual and the physical deaths of Christ on the cross. The passages we have noted are describing His saving work. The Greek brings this out because a(ima has both a figurative and a literal connotation. When someone bleeds, that is literal. When our Lord bled on the cross that was literal. The reason that blood is used in a figurative way to express the saving work of Christ on the cross is to relate it to the Levitical sacrifices, 1 Peter 1:18,19. Romans 5:8,9 describes the figurative blood of Christ or the saving work on the cross when it says, “But God demonstrated his love toward us in that while we were yet sinners Christ died for us.” When Christ died physically He didn’t die for us. The physical death was because His work was finished. He died for us when our sins were imputed to Him on the cross and judged. That is spiritual death.

Literal animal blood was used in the Old Testament sacrifices to portray the spiritual or figurative blood of Christ on the cross. The blood was the figurative blood which links the Old Testament ritual of the Levitical sacrifices with the historical fulfilment of the work of Christ on the cross, i.e. the saving work. The blood was used for a representative analogy in which the physical death of the animal on the altar represents the spiritual death of Christ on the cross.

The reason literal blood is used in the Old Testament, the animal blood, is because blood is the seat of animal life, Leviticus 17:10-14. In that passage it is very clear that when you cut the throat of an animal his breathing causes him to push the blood out through the throat and he dies in that way. “Any citizen from the house of Israel, or any alien who lives among them, who eats any blood, I will judge that person who eats blood, I will cut him off from the people.” They were not to eat blood. “For the life of the creature is in his blood.” This is animals, not human beings. Our life is in our soul, “and I have given it to you on the altar [the animal sacrifice] to make atonement for your souls; for it is the blood which makes an atonement for one’s life.” The blood of the animal contains the soul of the animal. This is not true in human beings, just in the animals. Hence, the animal life resides in that blood. So when the priest cut the throat of that animal it bled to death. Its soul is in that blood, that is the way it dies. The life of a human being, however, is in the soul, not in the blood. Human life resides in the human soul as an imputation at birth, and since animal life resides in animal blood God uses animal blood for a representative analogy for the propitiatory work of Christ on the cross. That is the difference between literal and figurative blood. In other words, the literal blood of the animal is analogous not to the literal blood of Christ on the cross when He bled from His hands and His feet for a few minutes, nor after His death the blood which came out of His chest cavity, but it is analogous to the figurative blood of Christ on the cross, His spiritual death, not His physical death. The physical death of the animal is analogous to the spiritual death of Christ. We call that a representative analogy. If the literal blood of the animal was related to the literal blood of Christ that would be called a literal analogy. This is not a literal or real analogy.

In the last three verses of this chapter we have the interim blessing of Tribulational martyrs. In verse 15 we have the interim state of the Tribulational martyrs which in effect is no different from our interim state except that it deals with a different dispensation and that it deals with imprecatory prayers.

Verse 15, we start out with a Greek idiom, dia plus the accusative neuter singular from the demonstrative pronoun o(utoj, “Because of this.” It is an idiom meaning “therefore,” but not here because they have believed in Christ, because they have received the imputation of divine righteousness at salvation, because they lived a wonderful life faith, grown rapidly, and have been martyred for their faith. They are now residing in an interim body in heaven and in the perfect circumstances of heaven.

With this we have the present active indicative of the verb e)imi, the verb “to be,” and it is translated “for this reason they are.” Then the present tense here is a descriptive present for what is now going on related, of course, in some way to the futuristic present which denotes an event which has not yet occurred but in thought it is so certain that it may be contemplated as already occurring. The active voice: in this case Tribulational martyrs produce the action of the verb. The declarative indicative is for a statement of doctrine. And with this we have a prepositional phrase, the improper preposition e)nwpion and the object of the preposition is qronoj, “before the throne,” and the descriptive genitive of “God.” Translation: “For this reason they are before the throne of God.” This describes very briefly the interim life.

The second phrase begins with the emphatic use of the conjunction kai, translated “in fact.” With it is the present active indicative of the verb latreuw. It is translated “serve,” and that is legitimate. It means to serve in the sense of worship. Originally in the Attic Greek it meant to serve for remuneration or reward. That is not the meaning in the Koine. It is derived from a Greek noun latron which means wages or reward. But when it came into the Koine Greek of the New Testament it refers to spiritual service and it really means worship. It isn’t serving like you are doing something — witnessing, helping people, and so on — it really is used here as a synonym for worship. The verb is used for praise, prayer, or any other form of worship, “in fact they worshipped.” Then comes the dative singular indirect object from a)utoj, generally used as the personal pronoun third person. Occasionally it is used as an intensive pronoun. This refers to God the Father, “in fact they worshipped him.” The progressive present tense signifies a state of persistence, hence present linear aktionsart. They are doing this a lot and they are enjoying it. They are having a very happy and wonderful time in heaven and a great deal of that time is related to worship and they are very enthusiastic. The active voice: the Tribulational martyrs produce the action. The indicative mood represents the verbal action from the viewpoint of reality. Then we have the genitive singular of time used twice: once for h(mera, which means “day,” and then once nuc meaning :night.”

Translation: “For this reason they are before the throne of God, in fact they worship him by day and by night.”

The genitive of time is a distinction of time rather than a point of time.

Principle

1. The interim body does not need sleep.

2. The interim body is in a state also of great happiness, great blessing, tranquillity — active happiness [enthusiasm] and passive happiness [tranquillity].

3. Because of all of this happiness and because they need no sleep these Tribulational martyrs are motivated to worship. Their motivation comes from their personal love for God related to their fantastic happiness.

4. Service does not apply to them any longer because they are in heaven, but their service on earth included their witness of life, their honour, their integrity, faithfulness to God, faithfulness to the Word, refusal to renounce Jesus Christ or to reject the Word under pressure. Also they had the message of the gospel in their witness. They were willing to die for their faith. That was their service on earth, that is not their service in heaven.

5. Their service in heaven in the interim body is concentrated in the field of worship — their praise, their adoration, their expression of personal love for God.

6. God the Father is invisible, sitting on the throne. He is worshipped. God the Son is visible, sitting on the throne [or standing in the midst, He is pictured both ways], and He is worshipped.

7. Because of the disastrous and pernicious circumstances of the Tribulation these believers who are martyrs have relatively little opportunity for assembly worship while they are on earth. They obviously took in Bible doctrine. Consequently heaven is a wonderful change in more ways than one. They can worship God every day and every night.

8. We never appreciate the value of our assembly worship and perception of doctrine until we have lost the privilege. God in His grace and faithfulness provides the opportunity in time to learn doctrine. While it is available people rarely seem to appreciate the opportunity. Believers can be so easily distracted by any form of entertainment, social life, business life, any kind of life, any kind of activity. It becomes more meaningful and more important than taking in doctrine, that is just the way people are. But there are those who live in life and discover the secret that when the Lord is first — this includes scale of values, worship function, the perception of doctrine — they have a phenomenal capacity and they have no regrets. And that is important.

9. Happiness produces energy. This carries over to the interim body after death. Happy people are energetic people.

Next we have the prepositional phrase en plus the locative of naw, and with it we have a)utoj in the genitive, “in the temple.” The temple is located in the third heaven and seems to house the throne room of God. Note that the verb latreuw is used for priestly service in the temple and the implication is obvious: while there is no universal priesthood of the believer in the Tribulation we note that every Tribulational martyr functions as his own priest and, therefore, the interim life means that every person in his interim body after death represents himself before God. Principle: Worship is service to God, just as much as any form of spiritual production [witnessing, giving, teaching, praying, etc.] Furthermore, true worship is predicated on personal love for God through perception of Bible doctrine. Therefore, the expression of personal love for God is not only a motivating virtue but it is a function of happiness. When you love someone you are happy to be in their presence. When you have learned doctrine and you assemble you are happy to hear about the Lord. In other words, the negative side of this principle: worship is never a drudge, it is not a good-luck charm, it is never a necessity imposed for hopeful blessing. Worship is the expression of maximum virtue and integrity in personal love for God. Everyone who is normal finds great happiness in the demonstration and expression of love. True worship is the expression of personal love for God. On earth God is invisible to us but in heaven He is visible to the believer in the interim body and the resurrection body. To enter the temple of God in the third heaven and to express personal love in worship is the quintessence of human happiness.

Principle

The problem with truth, Bible doctrine, is not the biblical statement of that truth in the canon of scripture but the interpretation of that truth in the many languages in which it is communicated. In other words, the statement of truth is the formation of the canon of scripture, as God the Holy Spirit so directed the human writers, like the apostle John. But the interpretation of that truth is the preaching, teaching, expository communication of any given passage compatible with exegesis, etymology, historical background of that passage, plus its consistency with orthodox or systematic theology.

Preaching and teaching

a. Preaching is lazy teaching.

b. Preaching is pleasing to man; teaching is pleasing to God.

c. For the first category of eternal life — that is, eternity in time, the believer needs teaching, he needs the inculcation of Bible doctrine.

d. Therefore preaching appeals to the emotion while teaching appeals to the intellect. It is the intellect that must be aroused to love, not the emotion. There is no love in emotion, all love is in the intellect. The emotion of the normal person responds to the intellect.

e. Preaching provides entertainment; teaching demands concentration.

f. Preaching demands the power of persuasion but teaching demands the power of the Holy Spirit.

g. Preaching caters to people; teaching challenges people.

Systematic theology has been constructed through the teaching of great men in every generation of the Church Age. So the greatest of worship comes from systematic theology. The inevitable result is a spiritual momentum in the plan of God in every generation, the establishment of a pivot of mature believers for blessing by association and historical uptrend, the manifestations of strategic victory of Christ in the angelic conflict. When Christians are insecure in their doctrinal beliefs they tend to emphasise the apologetical approach, the defence of their faith, rather than the content. When Christians are secure in their perception of doctrine they tend to become aggressive in communication, and delineating rather than defending what they believe. Those who understand doctrine never feel threatened by false doctrine. Hence, they are not pressured to rethink a doctrine or change their beliefs. From the stability of the orthodox system of systematic theology they become very stable. That great stability is the context for stability in happiness, and the stability in happiness factor expresses itself in true worship.

This happiness in worship is carried over into the eternal state. The believer in the interim body waiting for the resurrection body is a very happy person for this reason: they are before the throne of God, in fact they worship Him by day and by night in His temple. And what is the inevitable result of this? It is found in the articular present active participle of the verb kaqhmai, preceded by the conjunction kai, “and he who sits.” The definite article is used for the relative pronoun. The present tense is a static present, it represents a condition which is perpetually existing, it is taken for granted as a fact. The active voice: God the Father in this verse produces the action of the verb, although God the Son is to be included. The participle is circumstantial. With it is the prepositional phrase e)pi plus the genitive of qronoj, “and he who sits on the throne.”

The next verb is mistranslated in the King James version. It is the future active indicative of the verb skenow and it means to pitch a tent over or to bivouac, “and he who sits on the throne bivouacs.” The predictive future tense, or preferably a gnomic future, states a fact which may be rightfully expected under the circumstances of the interim life. God bivouacs with those in their interim body. God the Father and God the Son produce the action. The indicative mood is for a simple statement of fact.

And we have a final prepositional phrase, e)pi plus the accusative from a)utoj, the intensive pronoun translated “over them.” God will pitch a tent over them or bivouac with them. A bivouac implies a temporary arrangement and emphasises the interim life of the believer in heaven who is waiting for his resurrection. The relationship with God is one of maximum blessing. There is no unhappiness in the interim life in heaven whether for the believer who has died in the Church Age or the believer who has died in the Tribulation. In this case the context refers to the Tribulational martyrs but it applies to anyone who dies and goes to heaven. Therefore it requires faith in Jesus Christ to enter that part of the interim life.

Verse 16, a deliverance from their discomfort and persecutions which occurred in the Tribulation.

We begin with a future active indicative of the verb peinaw plus the negative o)u , “They will never again be hungry.” The gnomic future tense is for a statement of fact anticipated in the interim state. There is no hunger in the interim state. The active voice: the Tribulational martyrs produce the action of the verb. The declarative indicative mood is the for the historical reality of the interim life. The adverb e)pi is where we get “no longer.” This implies that they suffered some hunger and many of them were martyred in that way. The implication is that Tribulational believers are persecuted by being deprived of food and other necessities of life and that many of them apparently starved to death. Under the principle of logistical grace God provides for the believer the necessities of life in ordinary times, but the Tribulation is not an ordinary time. Here the very lack of provision indicates the nature of their testimony. In spite of the fact that they were deprived of food — they could have had food if they had renounced Christ — God permits this in the Tribulation for certain reasons which have to do with the fact that Bible doctrine is more important than any necessity in life, any pleasure in life, anything that is real to you in life and associated with happiness. Bible doctrine is far more important, therefore these people are now having great happiness, great blessing, because they have passed one of the most wonderful tests in life — Bible doctrine must be more important than anything else in life: than people you love, than people whom you despise. Bible doctrine is more important than anything else in life, any fame, any success, any necessity of life. Bible doctrine is more important than food, and love of God is more important than life itself.

The reality of their testimony was in the reality of their state of being deprived of food. Hence, they demonstrated the principle that love of God is far more important than love of life and they entered into a far greater life. They have gone into something that is so much greater than anything in this life.

Added to this is a second negative, the negative conjunction o)ude which means “neither” or “never again,” “neither will they thirst any longer,” the future active indicative of the verb dipsaw. Again, this implies that the Tribulational believers were persecuted by being deprived of water so that some of them died of thirst.

The other categories of problem here, the exposure, is mentioned, the negative o)ude again plus the negative mh, plus the nominative subject e(lioj, a misuse of the sun by the cruelty of man, “never shall the sun beat down,” the aorist active subjunctive of the verb piptw which means here to beat down. The aorist tense of piptw is a culminative aorist, it views the event in its entirety but it regards it from the viewpoint of existing results: no more persecution, no more privation or suffering on this earth. The active voice: the Tribulational martyrs produce the action of the verb, plus the negative o)ude plus the negative mh becomes a subjunctive of prohibition, translated “never.” They were exposed to torture by sunlight.

“nor any heat,” debilitating heat, a reference to lack of clothing, exposure to very bad weather. While God does and can provide food, shelter and clothing for believers under the principle of logistical grace this becomes that rare exception to demonstrate a principle that we are learning academically but the Tribulational believers will learn it from a practical standpoint. They will understand when they are martyred that life is not nearly as important as Bible doctrine. Bible doctrine goes on forever, temporal life is just a short period of time on planet earth. So the exception is based on circumstances as well. That is why chapter six comes before chapter seven, the four horsemen of the apocalypse help us to understand that principle. The exception, then, is based on the circumstances of the Tribulation where believers demonstrate that motivation from Bible doctrine and personal love for God is far greater than the necessities of life or the pleasures of life, and obviously then, life itself.

Verse 17, by way of contrast, the blessings of the eternal state. “Interim,” again, is defined as the life of the believer after physical death but prior to receiving a resurrection body. The interim life is described in 2 Corinthians 5:8 in connection with the body, “absent from the body, face to face with the Lord”; it is further described in Revelation 21:4, “And he shall wipe away all tears from their eyes ...”

We see the interim life of the Tribulational martyrs from two viewpoints. First of all they have blessings which come from God the Father and, secondly, they have blessings which come from God the Son.

The verse opens with the causal use of the conjunction o(ti, correctly translated “because.” The nominative singular of what follows, a)rnion, refers to the Lord Jesus Christ as the Lamb of God, “Because the Lamb.”

“who is in the middle of the throne.” There are two definite articles here. One is translated like a definite article, one is not. The first, to, is generic, it emphasises the uniqueness of Christ in His hypostatic union. The word “Lamb” emphasises the saving work of Christ. So the first definite article goes with a)rnion and refers to the uniqueness of Christ in His hypostatic union, eternal God and true humanity in one person forever; different from God in that he is man, different from man in that He is God. The second definite article is used for both a personal pronoun and a relative pronoun. With this we have an ellipsis, the omission of the verb “to be,” e)imi, and we have to insert it. Then the prepositional phrase, a)na plus the adverb meson which means “in the middle of.” “A)na” has a number of meanings. Sometimes it means “again” but here it means “in.” The object of the preposition is qronoj, “in the middle of the throne.” We have seen that the middle of the throne merely indicates that He is visible, sometimes seated and sometimes standing.

With this we have the future active indicative of the verb poimainw which means to shepherd. The future tense is primarily the tense of the indicative mood, therefore the element of time is very pronounced in this future tense. However, it does signify the character of the verbal idea but instead of presenting it in progress or linear aktionsart as the leading idea — the present or the imperfect — the general connotation is indefinite. Therefore it is very similar to the aorist tense. As a matter of fact the aorist tense is built on the future. This is because all future events have some connotation of uncertainty. While the aorist indicative narrates the event in past time the future indicative expresses anticipation of an event in future time. Therefore this is the gnomic future presenting the interim life after death as that which may be rightfully anticipated. Death is entry into a far greater system of blessing than anything time has to offer. The active voice: our Lord Jesus Christ produces the action of the verb here, i.e. shepherding the people, and the indicative mood is declarative for a dogmatic statement of fact.

“Because the Lamb who is in the middle of the throne shall be their shepherd.”

Our Lord Jesus Christ is presented three ways as the shepherd. In John chapter 10, verses 10-11, Jesus Christ is called “the good shepherd.” Our Lord’s title as the good shepherd has to do with His saving work on the cross, the judicial imputation of our sins to Christ, their judgement when our Lord was on the cross.

But then in Hebrews 13:20,21 Christ is called the great shepherd. This title refers to a fortiori blessing, divine blessing to mature believers. The judicial imputation for divine blessing comes at maturity. The blessings that we receive in time come from the great shepherd.

In 1 Peter 5:4 Jesus Christ is the chief shepherd, “And when the chief Shepherd appears you will receive the unfading crown of glory.” The unfading crown of glory which belongs to the chief Shepherd is the eternal state. The chief Shepherd is also a title for our Lord Jesus Christ as we face Him after death in the interim body, “absent from the body, face to face with the Lord.” Face to face implies the interim body itself.

The Lord Jesus Christ as the shepherd in time is of utmost importance to us since we are living in time. There are seven areas in which our Lord provides for us as believers.

First of all the believer, like a sheep, is helpless. A sheep cannot guide himself, he must be guided by the shepherd. That is our status quo right now, we are unable to guide ourselves. Our destiny does not depend on us, it depends on our Lord and our positive volition toward His plan. We cannot guide ourselves we need Bible doctrine so our shepherd has provided for us Bible doctrine.

A sheep, by the way, cannot even clean himself, he must be cleaned by the shepherd. This reminds us of our Lord’s provision as our shepherd of the rebound technique.

A sheep is helpless when injured. As we are injured in life by the various problems of life only our Lord can provide the therapy necessary.

A sheep is also defenceless and therefore depends on the shepherd — just as we must do.

A sheep cannot even find food or water for himself. He must depend on the shepherd to lead him to water. Unless our shepherd would provide for us we would be in the same status quo.

A sheep is easily frightened or panicked. Psalm 23 deals with this subject. A shepherd calms the sheep with his voice or a musical instrument. God has provided for us doctrine in the soul called “songs in the night.”

When the sheep produces wool it doesn’t really belong to him, it belongs to the shepherd or the one who owns the flock. This a part of the concept of the angelic conflict and all of this is in view here when it says in verse 17: “Because the Lamb who is in the middle of the throne shall be their shepherd”. He is their shepherd in heaven as He was their shepherd during their life on this earth during the Tribulation.

The it adds another phrase: “furthermore he will lead them,” the future active indicative of the verb o(dhgew which means to lead or to guide, “furthermore he will lead them [or guide them].” They are now totally under His protection in heaven. This is a predictive future anticipating the activity of the interim life, the great blessings that come at that time. The active voice: the Lord Jesus Christ produces the action of the verb, He produces an environment of maximum happiness. There are no distinctions between winners and losers.

Next we have the direction in which He will lead them. We have the preposition e)pi which is always a confusing preposition to Greek students until they learn the secret. The problem with this preposition is that is takes three different cases and therefore has three different meanings. E)pi, for example, often has its object in the genitive case. That emphasises contact. E)pi has as its object the locative case emphasising position. E)pi has as its object the accusative case emphasising motion or direction.

Here we have e)pi plus the accusative case of phgh referring to springs, “Furthermore he will lead them to the springs.” These springs are not on earth, they are in heaven. They are called the “springs of the waters of life,” the descriptive genitive plural from u(dor, the word from which we get our word “water.” In the ancient world water was considered to have great value. Water was greater than coinage and often greater than almost anything else. The most valuable thing of all here is the concept that in heaven there will be great blessing, a very exciting life for those who are in the interim state. The descriptive genitive singular of “life” emphasises this. “The “springs of the water of life” not only refer to eternal life but the tremendous blessings that accompany eternal life.

Interim blessing is also said to come from God the Father in the last phrase of this passage. It begins with a connective kai, the subject is o( qeoj, the generic use of the article is not translated and we simply translate it, “And God.” It is a reference to God the Father who is the God of all comfort. In 2 Corinthians 1:3,4, “Blessed be the God, even the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, the Father of mercies and the God of all comfort.” “Father of mercies” has to do with life on this earth, temporal life; “God of all comfort” has to do with the interim life and the eternal state. “Who comforts us in all of our pressures so that we may be able to comfort those who are in adversity [pressure], with the comfort by which we ourselves are comforted by God.” God the Father has a special ministry of comfort and this is the ministry of comfort which is mentioned here. It is a ministry that belongs to us in time; it also belongs in the eternal state, as says this particular phrase.

We have the future active indicative of e)xaleifw which means to comfort but it is a specific type of comfort. It is what is called graphic comfort, the wiping away of a tear, the erasing of a tear. It is translated “wipe away” but it means erase. Wiping away a tear is a physical function but it represents a function of God on our behalf and the function is comfort. The gnomic future tense is or interim blessing from God the Father anticipating the resurrection. The active voice: God the Father, the God of all comfort, produces the action of the verb. The indicative mood is declarative for the reality of great blessing and comfort in the interim life. The comfort that God provides for believers in time is extended to the interim life.

The final phrase: “all tears from their eyes.” We have an accusative made up of two words, paj plus dakruon, “all tears” or “every tear.” These are in the singular and should be translated “every tear,” “from their eyes,” e)k plus o)fqalmoj plus a)utoj.

Corrected translation: “Because the Lamb who is in the middle of the throne shall be their shepherd, furthermore he will lead them to the springs of the waters of life; and God [the Father] will wipe away every tear from their eyes.”

In salvation the soul of the believer is saved. Animal souls are creature conscious but they are not God-conscious. Man’s soul is God-conscious, therefore the possibility of salvation.

Lev. 17:12 adds, “Therefore I communicate a mandate to every Jewish citizen, ‘None of you may eat the blood [of animals], nor any alien living among you, he must not eat blood’.” Animal blood was prohibited for food but not animal meat. Animal blood must be related to the altar, to the holy of holies, the mercy seat, not to the stomach. The eating of animal meat is a picture of faith in Christ as illustrated on the day of atonement when the eating of blood was prohibited but they ate part of the animal sacrifice. The blood of the animal contains the soul of the animal, the loss of his blood means the loss of his life. Hence, the representative analogy must relate to the living resurrected Christ. So in representative analogy the blood is never eaten or digested. Blood is death to the animal but Christ is life for the believer forever and ever. A representative analogy only goes as far as the spiritual death of Christ and takes cognisance of His somatic death and physical resurrection. The altar is more important than the stomach is what Leviticus 17 is saying; salvation is more important than temporal life.

Verse 13, “Any Jewish citizen, or any alien living among you who hunts any animal or bird which may be eaten [that was permissible and encouraged], must first drain out its blood and cover it [the blood] with earth.” You don’t bury the carcass, you eat it. You bury the blood.

Verse 14, “Because the life of every animal is in its blood. That is why I commanded the Jews, ‘You must not eat the blood of any animal, because the life of every animal is in its blood; anyone who eats it will be cut off’.” The animal blood is a shadow, a training aid, an analogy pointing to the cross and the work of salvation. It is an analogy to the spiritual death of Christ on the cross. Christ died twice on the cross so that we could be born twice. Spiritual death is the imputation of the sins of the entire world to our Lord, and then God the Father judged them. No sin was ever judged except on the cross. God the Father judged God the Son as our substitute, the judgement was made against His perfect humanity.

The challenge: Hebrews 13:12, “Therefore Jesus also, that he might sanctify the people through his own blood, suffered outside the gate” — literally, outside the gate of Jerusalem.

Hebrews 9:12, “and not through the blood of goats and young bulls [literal blood], but by means of his own blood [figurative blood] he [the Lord Jesus Christ] entered into the holy of holies once and for all, having procured eternal redemption for us.”

So that: Hebrews 9:14, “how much more shall the blood of Christ, who through his eternal spirit [divine essence] has offered himself without blemish [the impeccability of His humanity] to the God [He offered Himself to the Father].” The Father saw the Son on the cross, perfect, and all of the sins of the world, past, present and future, were imputed to Him, and at that time they were judged.

It is interesting that the book of Revelation which is a prophetic book keeps going back to the work of our Lord on the cross. This is the third time so far that we have had “the blood of Christ” in the book of Revelation.

There are two doctrines of salvation considered to be extremely important in giving a fuller meaning of the blood of Christ. The first is the doctrine of propitiation, the other is the doctrine of reconciliation. The work of Christ is so great that one doctrine cannot cover it, and so we have many doctrines and many categories. For example, the doctrine of redemption is directed towards sin. We were pictured as being in the slave market of sin. Christ paid for our freedom on the cross and when we believe in Christ we walk out, we are redeemed. Redemption means purchasing our freedom. Then, of course, there is the doctrine of propitiation. That is directed toward God. God the Father is satisfied with the work of God the Son. And there is the doctrine of reconciliation — directed toward man. Man is reconciled to God by the work of Christ.

Propitiation, then, is the Godward side of salvation. Propitiation means satisfaction. Propitiation deals with the integrity of God, His righteousness and His justice, as related to our salvation. Propitiation connotes divine satisfaction with the work of Christ on the cross. This forms the basis for reconciliation between man and God.

In the concept of propitiation we have the sins of the human race imputed to Christ on the cross, 2 Corinthians 5:21; 1 Peter 2:24, and then judged by the justice of God the Father. This satisfies His righteousness. Remember that God is holy [that is the integrity of God]. His holiness is composed of His justice and His perfect righteousness. When the justice of God judged our sins on the cross the righteousness of God was satisfied. Because the righteousness of God is satisfied God can impute His righteousness to us when we believe in Christ.