And I saw another strong angel coming down out of the heaven, clothed with a cloud, and the rainbow upon his head, and his countenance as the sun, and his feet as pillars of fire,
Revelation 10 breaks into the series of trumpet judgments like light through storm clouds. The first question every reader asks is who this "mighty angel" is, and the details of his appearance answer it.
This chapter pauses the trumpet judgments. The vision comes at the darkest moment.
Things are drawing to a close. The half-week of sorrow (three and a half years) is nearly over. Its last hours show the world in mad, open rebellion against God. They also show His saints, on whom the Beast and the Antichrist pour out their fury. But before the Gentile and Jewish apostates and those they have fooled drink the last dregs of the Lord's vengeance, this comforting vision breaks through the dark clouds of judgment. It is a stern reminder to the world. Despite the rage of the wicked, the government of the earth is the Creator's just claim, and He is about to make that claim good in power. The vision is also well fitted to strengthen and comfort believers, especially suffering saints. The same power that will crush the enemy lifts the sufferers to honour.
The description itself gives the answer.
This is the personal description of this mighty angel. Several of its details point us to the Lord Jesus Christ Himself. He is clothed with a cloud. A cloud is often connected with the divine presence, and so with our Lord... On the mount of transfiguration a cloud overshadowed both Him and His disciples (Matt. 17; Luke 9); and when He ascended up into heaven a cloud received Him out of the sight of His own (Acts 1)... In Revelation 4 the rainbow is around the divine throne; here it is on the angel's head. The rainbow is the symbol of God's everlasting covenant with the earth (Genesis 9:12-13). None, therefore, but a Divine Person could wear the rainbow on His head. The last two features, the face like the sun and the feet like pillars of fire, are almost exactly the same as those given in Revelation 1:15-16. There can be no doubt, then, that this mighty angel is Christ.
An earlier chapter also spoke of a "strong angel." The shared word can mislead.
"Another strong angel" takes our thoughts back to Revelation 5:2. The only thing the two have in common is the word "strong." The earlier text speaks of a created being given great might. This passage shows us an uncreated Being of divine majesty and power. It is the Lord Himself. We have had already a vision of the Lord in angelic, priestly intercession (Rev. 8:3); here He asserts in angelic power His undisputed claim to the dominion of the earth.
Each feature says something about the One who wears it and about what He comes to do. Older translations read "feet" where the ESV has "legs."
A mighty angel comes down out of heaven, the source of His action. He is clothed with a cloud, the special sign of Jehovah's majesty (Isa. 19:1). None but He has the right to come clothed like that. Further, the rainbow is on His head. He occupies Himself with divine mercy toward the creation. It is no longer a matter of the rainbow around the throne. Here a further step is taken. He approaches the earth. He asserts His undeniable claim to all creation, because it is His by right. "And His face was as the sun," with supreme authority; "and His feet as pillars of fire," with firmness of divine judgment.
If this is Christ, why does John see Him in an angel's form at all? The answer lies in the timing.
The tenth chapter clearly shows that Christ is soon to assert His own rights in the earth. He will declare that He is the only Potentate, the King of kings and Lord of lords... John saw a mighty angel standing for Christ in this way because the time for Christ's actual return had not yet come. The vision surely tells us this: however hardened, unbelieving and unrepentant men may be, Christ is Lord of all. He is soon to lay claim to all, and so events will move fast.
Of all the emblems, the rainbow is the strangest to find on a figure who comes to judge.
The strong angel's descent to earth signals the close of God's providential dealings. The scene of action is now openly on earth, not in heaven... The rainbow on his head is the same rainbow John saw before (Rev. 4:3). There it encircled the throne and its majestic Occupant; here it rests on the head of the angel, with all its many colours and glories. In the middle of these scenes of judgment God's remembrance of mercy is constant and unfailing. The bow in the cloud, that ancient token of divine goodness (Gen. 9), reappears here, just at the time and season when it is most needed.
- Timing — The vision breaks in at the darkest hour: comfort for suffering saints, warning for a rebellious world.
- Identity — Cloud, rainbow, face like the sun, legs like pillars of fire: marks of a Divine Person. Commentators agree the angel is Christ.
- Contrast — The "strong angel" of chapter 5 is a created being. This One is uncreated. They share only the word "strong."
- Meaning — Cloud: Jehovah's majesty. Rainbow: mercy toward creation. Face: supreme authority. Feet: firm judgment.
- Mercy — The rainbow rests on the head of the Judge. God remembers His goodness at the very moment He claims the earth in power.
and having in his hand a little opened book. And he set his right foot on the sea, and the left upon the earth,
A mighty figure comes down from heaven, holding an open scroll, one foot on the sea and one on the land. Before He says a word, His stance already stakes a claim — and the verse leaves us asking who He is, and what He claims.
The description just before this verse tells us whose hand holds the book.
From Revelation 10 to 11:14 is a parenthesis. It begins with a Mighty Angel, clothed with a cloud, a rainbow on His head, His face like the sun, and His feet like pillars of fire. In this description there can be no mistake. Here we have the Lord Himself in angelic form. When He appears it is indeed the beginning of the end.
Earlier He appeared as a priest. Here that has changed.
So we have again the Lord in angelic appearance. Before, He appeared as high priest; here He is the angel with royal claim… He approaches the earth, and He asserts His undeniable claim to all creation as His by right… It is no sealed-up book now, but a little one and open: sea or earth are alike His.
Five chapters earlier a scroll appeared that no one could open until the Lamb broke its seals. This one is open, and it is small.
In Revelation 5 the Lord holds a closed, seven-sealed book in His right hand. Here the angel holds an open book. Why closed in the one and open in the other? In the first, the Lamb discloses the purposes of God one by one, purposes never revealed before. In the second, "the book is open as part of well-known prophecy, and now brought to a direct issue on known ground." This is also a "little" book, small compared with the larger book of chapter 5, which was so full that it was written on both sides.
Nothing here is sealed. Its contents already stood written in older prophecy.
It is not a sealed book like the one in Revelation 5, whose contents no one could know until the seals were broken. This book is open, and its contents were already known. Christ's action in taking possession of the earth and the sea — and all that earth and sea represent — is pictured by His right foot on the sea and His left foot on the earth. The prophetic writings had surely made this known already. (See, for example, Psalm 72; Isaiah 11; 25; 60; Zechariah 14, and countless other passages.)
The two feet cover two different sorts of humanity.
The angel set His right foot on the sea, and His left foot on the earth. In Scripture the sea often pictures the mass of nations in an uncivilised state. The earth speaks of the ordered part of the world that has had the light of God, whether in Judaism or Christendom. So the earth is the part of the world that prophecy applies to above all. This leads us on to the time when Christ will publicly assert His rights over the whole world.
Which foot goes where is not accidental.
Three times in this vision the angel stands on the sea and the earth, and each time the sea is named before the earth, while elsewhere in this book the order is reversed. Is it chance or divine precision that the right foot comes down on the rebellious nations and peoples, and the left on the professed scene of light and government? How firm the tread of the angel! How complete the action! How thorough the subjugation of all to Him!
The stance is one of ownership, but the world does not yet see it.
The Angel stood with His right foot on the sea and His left on the earth. That is, He dominates the whole world — both the unstable, turbulent masses and the more stable, organized kingdoms. So He dominates the entire scene, though for a short time yet He does not display His supremacy, and men do not acknowledge it.
Later in the chapter John is told to eat this same open book. That instruction teaches anyone who handles God's word.
Notice the thought underneath: what the servant of God gives out as prophecy or teaching, he must first eat, digest and absorb himself. Nothing does more spiritual harm than to proclaim and parade our knowledge of truth that we have not yet really made our own in meditation, in prayer, in experience. Gaining fresh truth is sweet and thrilling as honey. But once we digest and absorb it inside, it always displaces flesh and self and the world, and that is a bitter process.
- Owner — the figure holding the book is the Lord Himself in angelic form. He no longer acts as priest; He comes down with royal claim to all creation.
- Open — this book needs no unsealing, unlike the sealed scroll of Revelation 5. Its contents are prophecy already written, now brought to a head.
- Reach — the right foot covers the sea: the turbulent, unformed nations. The left covers the earth: the ordered world that has had God's light. Nothing lies outside the two feet.
- Firmness — the two feet planted on sea and land picture complete subjugation. For now, men neither see nor admit His supremacy.
- Digestion — the servant must eat the same open book before he preaches it. Fresh truth tastes sweet as honey, but absorbed truth displaces self, and that is bitter.
and cried with a loud voice as a lion roars. And when he cried, the seven thunders uttered their own voices.
A mighty angel stands with one foot on the sea and one on the land. He shouts like a roaring lion, and seven thunders answer. Who is calling out? Why does the cry sound like a lion? And what do the thunders say?
Commentators identify this cry as the voice of Christ. They hear in it a note struck earlier in the book, where He appears as both Lion and Lamb.
Along with the act of the angel we have His voice of majesty and power, causing intense terror throughout the whole earth (Hosea 11:10; Joel 3:16). It is the voice of Christ. "He sends out His voice, His mighty voice" (Ps. 68:33). We have here the roar of the lion of the tribe of Judah. Chapter 5 names Him this way alongside the Lamb, in that magnificent heavenly scene. But there we see the Lamb acting; here the Lion.
One commentator reads the image through the prophet Amos, where a lion roars only when it already has prey.
"Does a lion roar in the forest, when he has no prey? Does a young lion cry out from his den, if he has taken nothing? … For the Lord God does nothing without revealing His secret to His servants the prophets. The lion has roared; who will not fear? The Lord God has spoken; who can but prophesy?" (Amos 3.) I cannot help seeing this passage from the prophet as an illustration, in several ways, of the vision before us. Again, in the Old Testament thunder always stood for God's authority in judgment. We are called to hear this dreadful announcement of God's judgments.
The thunders are described as uttering "their own voices," and that wording is pressed: this is speech, not noise.
The angel's cry was a cry to Jehovah, and it is answered at once. The answer is one of power and judgment. Thunder is God's voice in judgment, the expression of His authority in it (1 Sam. 7:10; Ps. 18:13; Job 26:14). "The seven thunders" indicate a full and perfect response to the angel's cry. "The seven" gives precision and definiteness to the answering voices of the thunders. This was not a crash like natural thunder. These thunders gave clear expression to the mind of the God of judgment; they "uttered their own voices."
Another writer places the roar just before the blow falls.
It is the voice that comes first, the voice of Judah's Lion, as "suddenly His anger kindles." The seven thunders answer it — the full divine voice, the whole government of God in action. But what they say must find its meaning at a later time.
John hears the thunders, but a voice from heaven stops his pen.
His voice, too, was of the highest power and majesty. Its echo was the seven thunders, which surely speak of further acts of judgment. God makes the seals, the trumpets and the bowls all public, but by express command the thunders go unrecorded. It is a solemn thought. Many details of the divine judgments are revealed, yet there will be judgments beyond anything made known to us.
Commentators differ on the reason. Some say the meaning waits for a later time. Another writer draws a practical lesson from the ban itself.
The thunders spoke clearly, but John is not allowed to write their words (v. 4). So we do not need to know what was said.
This vision arrives at the darkest point of the story. It speaks to more than the guilty.
Things are drawing to a close. The three and a half years of sorrow are nearly spent, but their last hours show the world in mad and open rebellion against God, and against His saints, on whom the Beast and the Antichrist unleash their fury. Before the Gentile and Jewish apostates and those they have fooled drink the last of the Lord's vengeance, this comforting vision breaks through the dark clouds of judgment. It is a stern reminder to the world that, despite the raging of the wicked, the government of the earth is the just claim of the Creator. He is about to make that claim good in power. But the vision is also perfectly fitted to strengthen and comfort believers, and especially suffering saints. The same power that will crush the enemy raises the sufferers to honour.
- Lion. The one who cries is Christ — the Lamb of chapter 5 now acting as the Lion of Judah, claiming the earth as His own.
- Roar. A lion roars when the prey is already taken. The cry announces judgment that is settled, not threatened.
- Thunder. Seven thunders answer the roar. This is the full, exact voice of God's authority — words with meaning, not noise.
- Sealed. John understood the words, but heaven told him not to write them. God keeps judgments in reserve beyond all He has revealed.
- Comfort. The same power that crushes the rebel lifts the suffering believer. This vision breaks like light through the darkest hour.
And when the seven thunders spoke, I was about to write and I heard a voice out of the heaven saying, Seal the things which the seven thunders have spoken, and write them not.
Between the sixth and seventh trumpets, a mighty angel stands on the sea and the land and roars like a lion — and seven thunders answer Him. John reaches for his pen, and a voice from heaven stops him: why speak, only to seal the words away?
The thunders are not an interruption. They are God's own authority answering the cry of the One who claims the earth. Their number speaks of completeness.
The "seven thunders" are the perfection of God's intervention in His judgment, answering the voice of the angel. God keeps sealed those things which John then sees; He will not allow John to write. God allows the thunders to speak, to show that all His power must intervene in answer to this cry of Christ.
Thunder carries a fixed meaning across Scripture. The roar that sets it off has an echo in the Old Testament too.
"The lion has roared; who will not fear? The Lord God has spoken; who can but prophesy?" (Amos 3). I cannot help seeing this passage from the prophet Amos as an illustration, in several ways, of the vision we are examining. Again, in the Old Testament thunder was constantly how God expressed His authority in judgment. God calls us to hear this dreadful announcement of His judgments. John was about to write, but a voice from heaven forbids it. He was not to communicate the details of what God was going to do now.
The silence is not John's ignorance. He was ready to write because he had taken the words in.
The prophet was about to record the words of the thunders. He heard and understood. This vision is full of voices. That of the angel of the thunders, and another "out of heaven." This was a voice of authority... Those communications, unrevealed to us, were to be sealed. It was not the time to make them known. The exact meaning of these revelations remains undisclosed; probably they appear in the later communications that deal directly with the end.
The order comes in two parts: seal, and do not write. Daniel received the same kind of command. From that comparison comes a rule that runs through all prophecy.
The seer receives two commands: first, to seal up the sayings of the thunder; second, not to write them (compare Dan. 8:26; 12:9)... Sealing these prophetic revelations supposes that the end is a long way off. If the end is near, then the prophecies are not to be sealed. In one case the words are sealed, for the end is far off (Dan. 12:9); in another the sayings are not sealed, for the end is near (Rev. 22:10).
The roar has a name behind it. The thunders' message is held back, not cancelled.
It is the opening voice of the Lion of Judah, whose anger is quickly kindled. The seven thunders answer it — the full divine voice, the whole government of God in action. But what they say has to find its meaning at a later time.
A sealed message can feel like being shut out. One writer found the opposite: this closed door is what sets the reader free in the rest of the book.
I know of nothing that gives the soul more freedom in reading this book than this sealing up. It speaks of the care and love and foresight that has shut away in the book all we were not to see... But how sweet it is to rest in the love that sealed them to us and opened them to John. How sweet to be free of jealousy or grudging against Him who has made the difference.
This verse is one instance of a wider pattern. The Bible does not contain everything God ever said; it contains what He chose to preserve for us.
It is a selected revelation. We have not recorded in it all that God has revealed during these 4,000 years to His people... Paul writes of having heard unspeakable words, which it is not possible for a man to utter (2 Cor. 12:4). John heard the voice of the seven thunders, but was forbidden to record what they said (Rev. 10:4). And the same apostle tells us that Jesus did many other signs in the presence of His disciples, which are not written in this book. But these are written so that you may believe that Jesus is the Christ, the Son of God, and that by believing you may have life in His name.
- Cry — the lion's roar is Christ claiming sea and land, and the thunders are heaven's answer to it.
- Seven — the number marks God's complete intervention in judgment. Thunder in Scripture is His authority speaking.
- Sealed — two commands, not one: seal the sayings, and do not write them. Daniel's visions were shut up in the same way until the end.
- Timing — a sealed message means the end is still far off; an open one means the end is near (Rev. 22:10).
- Trust — the silence is love, not loss; God's word to us is a chosen record, written that we may believe and have life.
And the angel whom I saw stand on the sea and on the earth lifted up his right hand to the heaven,
Commentary for this verse has not been generated yet.
and swore by him that lives to the ages of ages, who created the heaven and the things that are in it, and the earth and the things that are in it, and the sea and the things that are in it, that there should be no longer delay;
A mighty angel stands on the sea and on the land, lifts His hand to heaven, and swears by the God who lives forever and made all things. Does that oath announce the end of time itself, or the end of God's waiting?
The one who takes the oath is identified by commentators with Christ Himself, which makes the words a self-oath rather than an appeal to a higher authority.
The angel lifts up His hand to heaven and swears by the living God, the Creator of heaven, earth and sea and everything in them, that there should be delay no longer (v. 6). He is one with God, so that this is really God swearing by Himself. He had done this when showing grace to Abraham and his seed (Hebrews 6:13-14); now He does so when executing the judgment that subdues all things under Him.
The same oath-form serves two opposite errands, and neither can be revoked:
If we are right to identify this "mighty Angel" with our Lord, then in swearing "by Him who lives forever and ever" He was swearing by Himself, just as when God gave the promise to Abraham. That was an oath for blessing. This is an oath for judgment. Both are equally unchangeable.
Older translations read "that there should be time no longer." That wording has misled many readers.
Many imagine it means that time was then to end and eternity to begin. But that is not the sense at all... The meaning is that God would no longer let time run on before He stepped in and dealt with the course of this world. Eternity was not to begin at once. There was simply to be no more passing of time before His last summons to the world.
A long stretch of history still lies between this oath and eternity:
It is not "no longer time," as the Authorised Version has it and the Revised Version keeps it. The translators corrected their blunder by putting "delay" in the margin instead of "time." Either the text or the margin is right, for both cannot be. After the angel's oath is fulfilled, at least a thousand years run their course before time ceases and eternity opens. So it cannot mean that there will be no longer "time."
The oath names God as the maker of heaven, earth and sea — the very three realms the angel has just planted His feet upon.
It is Christ come down, after His long season of patience at the right hand of God, to take possession of His rightful inheritance. Notice this too. He gained the title through His redemption work, yet He takes possession by right of the Creator's sovereign claim. That is why He lifts up His hand to heaven and swears by the eternal God, the universal Creator. It is creation's Lord who has given the title, and now He comes to make it good.
That explains why the picture here differs from the vision of the Lamb earlier in the book:
He takes the earth, not by right of His work on the cross, which is not mentioned here. He takes it as the One whom God has resolved to set over the works of His hands — God acting in His sovereign rights as Creator and "possessor of heaven and earth." In the fifth chapter, where God appeared as Judge, Christ was seen as the Lamb slain. In the fourth chapter, where God appeared as Creator, the Lamb was not seen.
God's patience held the judgment back. What brought the waiting to an end came from man's side:
God's patience and long endurance had held back the full stroke of divine judgment. But the evil was appalling, and chapter 9 ends by exposing a complete lack of repentance. This was now hastening the climax, which would come when the seventh trumpet sounded. At last the cup of man's iniquity was full.
The end of delay is not only a stop. It opens the way for a reign.
Now, however, this mystery of God is about to be finished. God, by His Son, the Heir of all things, will wrench the government of the world out of Satan's iron grasp and shut him up as a prisoner in the abyss for 1000 years... Evil is tolerated and allowed today, despite many checks that keep it from reaching its full height. Then God will punish it openly. The mystery is at an end. Christ is about to reign.
- Delay, not time. The oath does not end time. It says God will no longer let the world run on before He steps in.
- Delay had a reason. God's patience held judgment back. Evil that refused to repent brought the waiting to its end.
- Delay ends by oath. Christ swears by Himself, just as God did when He promised blessing to Abraham. The same unchangeable oath now pledges judgment.
- Delay ends on Creator's ground. He swears by the One who made heaven, earth and sea, and takes possession by the Creator's right, not by the cross.
- Delay ends so a reign can begin. When the waiting ends, Christ shuts Satan away, punishes evil openly, and takes the government of the world.
but in the days of the voice of the seventh angel, when he is about to sound the trumpet, the mystery of God also shall be completed, as he has made known the glad tidings to his own bondmen the prophets.
The angel's oath ends with a promise about timing. When the seventh trumpet is about to sound, something long hidden is finished. So what is "the mystery of God"? And why has God waited so long to end it?
The word does not mean a puzzle no one can solve. Here it covers long ages of silence on God's part.
In this passage the mystery of God is this: for long ages God has not stepped in publicly in the affairs of men. The wickedness of men has grown, with no public check from God. God has let men indulge their desires, reach their ambitions, and grow in their rebellion against Him and in their persecution of His people. During the ages God's people have been tortured on the rack, banished from their homes, and martyred at the stake, and God, it might seem, has not interfered. All this — which has been called the silence of God — is a great mystery. But it can be explained. In Scripture a "mystery" is not something that no one can explain. It is something known only to those let in on it. While this mystery lasts, believers have the open book of prophecy, foretelling the blessing that will come when God steps in publicly. So the lamp of prophecy has lit up the darkness of the ages and let the believer into the mind of God.
Scripture uses the word "mystery" for several different things. This verse is not about Christ and the church.
We must in no way connect the mystery in Revelation 10:7 with the mystery that filled so much of Paul's ministry. That one is the heading up of all things in Christ. Its present aspect is that God has given Him to be head over all things to the Church, which is His body, the fulness of Him who fills all in all (Ephesians 1, 3; Colossians 1, 2). There are other mysteries, such as that of godliness (1 Timothy 3:16), and of lawlessness (2 Thessalonians 2:7). In Revelation the mystery is God staying passive while evil goes on and prospers. That would be a still greater mystery if revelation had not told us this: His silence, which He speaks of in Psalm 50, and His holding back will come to an end.
Evil is not left completely unchecked even now. That makes its success even harder to understand.
God does check evil to some extent, partly through human government and partly through His own providential dealings. It is a great mercy that such restraints exist. Still, no government can root out the influence of evil, and good is misrepresented, so it has little influence. That is what seems so mysterious a thing to us, when we know God and how He hates evil.
One writer weighs the older wording "when he shall begin to sound," and shows how it fixes the time.
The real force of the words "when he shall begin to sound" is "when he shall sound, as he is about to do." This, with the expression "there shall be no longer delay," fixes the time. It is just before the seventh trumpet, when "the kingdom of the world has become the kingdom of our Lord and of his Christ" (Revelation 11:15). Then "the mystery of God" will be finished.
The verse ties this ending to a message God gave the prophets. Notice which way that message ran.
This is indeed glad tidings proclaimed to His prophets of old, not declared by them (although they did that too, as their books testify), but to them: "For the Lord GOD does nothing without revealing his secret to his servants the prophets" (Amos 3:7). This is God's decree: He will step in publicly for His afflicted saints. He will crush the power of evil. He will drive the usurper Satan out of the earth, which he has so far been allowed to ruin morally and physically. And He will set up the world in more than its first beauty and order. The same blessed hope, with added glories, is our strength today.
The ending does more than stop the delay. It explains it.
There has been an apparent long delay. Now there will be "no more delay." Man's day has run to its end. Though in cloud and storm, the day of the Lord is dawning at last. Then the mystery of God is finished... Meanwhile evil keeps on and seems to win, and by this the heirs of glory are disciplined. Now at last all is cleared up. The mystery of God had to be a mystery while patience did its perfect work. Now it is finished forever. The glory of God shines like the sun. How fully faith is justified! The murmur of doubt is silenced forever.
- Silence — the mystery is God's long public silence, while evil runs on and seems to win.
- Not Paul's — this is not the mystery of Christ and the church; Scripture uses the word for several different things.
- Told — God gave the good news to His prophets first, so the end is a promise kept, not a surprise.
- Timed — the silence ends as the seventh angel is about to sound, just before the kingdom of the world becomes Christ's.
- Cleared — then faith is justified, and every murmur of doubt is silenced for good.