he also shall drink of the wine of the fury of God prepared unmixed in the cup of his wrath, and he shall be tormented in fire and brimstone before the holy angels and before the Lamb.
The third angel warns anyone who worships the beast and takes his mark. The verse raises hard questions: why the wrath is "full strength," why the Lamb is named as a witness, and why God says all this out loud first.
God shouts this warning instead of whispering it. Grant reads the volume itself as mercy.
Here God's mercy can only take one form: a loud, forceful threat of extreme punishment for those who worship the beast. The more terrible the evil, the more openly the Lord announces the doom that will fall on it, so that no one may walk into it without knowing.
The phrase behind "poured full strength" is a paradox in the Greek.
In Revelation 14:10 we have the expression tou kekerasmenou akratou, which describes "the wine of the wrath of God" more fully. Lowth and others take it to carry a contrast that our English version does not show — "the mingled unmingled." The picture is of wine not mixed with water to weaken it, but mixed with drugs to make it stronger.
Gaebelein puts the same fact in plain moral terms.
They drink of the wrath of God. It is "without mixture," that is, no mercy is found in the cup of His indignation.
The image answers something earlier in the chapter. The nations had already drunk from Babylon's cup. Where the ESV says "sulfur," older versions say "brimstone."
The nations had drunk out of the harlot's cup (v. 8); now in retributive justice they shall drink out of God's cup (v. 10). In this cup there are no soothing ingredients (Ps. 75:8). It is pure, unmixed wrath. "He shall be tormented in fire and brimstone." "Fire and brimstone" (Isa. 30:33; Rev. 20:10) are symbols of anguish beyond words. The awful torment is individual. Each one shall suffer eternal misery in his own person.
Why name the watchers? Scott treats them as part of the suffering itself.
Another awful feature of the agony laid on each follower of the Beast is that the torment must be endured "before (or in the presence of) the holy angels and before the Lamb." The holy angels had watched from their place on high the horrible wickedness of the Beast and his helpers. Now they will watch God's vengeance, and each tormented one will know that the angels are looking down on that scene of anguish. He suffers "before the Lamb" too, Whom they had openly defied, and Whose blood they had recklessly trampled on.
The same Person can be met in either of two ways.
There is not an unconverted man who shall not see Jesus Christ some day! If you look to Him now you will find Him a Saviour; when you see Him then you will find Him a Judge. If you come to Him now, you will find mercy. If you stand before Him then, you will be driven away to "drink of the wine of the wrath of God … in the presence of the holy angels, and in the presence of the Lamb."
How long the punishment lasts settles a modern question: is everyone finally saved in the end? Dennett also names who shares this guilt.
In a day when universalism is so popular, even among professing Christians, it is worth noting what kind of judgment this is. True, it falls on one class of people. But if there were only some who must endure their punishment for "ages of ages," and who will "have no rest day nor night," that alone disproves the argument that there is no such thing as eternal punishment. Note also this: wherever man takes God's place in the souls of others, wherever men give to man what belongs to God alone, there is morally the same guilt that these terrible judgments are pronounced on here.
One other Person has drunk this cup. That is where the warning turns into an offer.
He looked at the cup, shrank from it, but said, I will drink it. Our eternal salvation hung on His drinking that cup. If He did not bear that wrath and judgment, we must; and if He did not drink that cup, we must drink it. ... Drain it? You will drink, and drink, and drink it again as the eternal ages roll on, but you will never drain it. Thank God, my Saviour has drained it for me.
- Cup announced — God proclaims the doom with a loud voice, so no one walks into it blindly. When evil goes this far, a loud threat is the shape mercy takes.
- Cup undiluted — The wine is "full strength": not weakened with water, but made stronger. No mercy softens what is in the cup.
- Cup returned — Those who drank from Babylon's cup must now drink from God's, and each one drinks it in his own person.
- Cup witnessed — The angels who saw the wickedness now watch the vengeance, and so does the Lamb they defied. That same Lamb is Saviour to whoever looks to Him now.
- Cup drained — No one will ever finish this cup: no rest, day or night. Only One ever drained it, and He drained it for others.
And the smoke of their torment goes up to ages of ages, and they have no respite day and night who do homage to the beast and to its image, and if any one receive the mark of its name.
Commentary for this verse has not been generated yet.