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.