And I saw another angel flying in mid-heaven, having [the] everlasting glad tidings to announce to those settled on the earth, and to every nation and tribe and tongue and people,
John sees an angel cross the open sky with news for every nation on earth. The message is called eternal, yet it sounds nothing like the preaching heard in churches today. What is this gospel? Who is it for? Why does it come at this hour?
The word "gospel" covers more than one message in Scripture. This one is not the message going out today. Older translations call it the "everlasting gospel."
Why is it called "everlasting"? We must remember that the gospel preached now is a very special gospel, and in no way an everlasting gospel. Nobody ever heard the gospel we preach now until Jesus died, rose, and even went to heaven... So the gospel of the grace of God is not rightly called the "everlasting gospel." Scripture never calls it that.
The two messages also run in opposite directions.
This is not the message of salvation that God now sends to men by the preaching of the name of Jesus. To apply this passage to missionary work today is to shut the mouth of the angel. He says, "The hour of His judgment has come." God, on the contrary, still gives us time to announce and proclaim His grace towards poor sinners... The gospel we have to preach gathers the church for heaven. The angel's gospel announces judgment to the earth. God always sends a special testimony before judgment. He sent Noah before the flood, and He will act the same way before the judgment of the earth.
Writers differ on where the word "everlasting" points. Some trace it back to the first promise God ever made to fallen humanity.
In the garden of Eden, in the paradise ruined and lost by sin, God still pointed to the Seed of the woman. Note that He is the bruised Seed of the woman, and He was to bruise the serpent's head. Is this not gospel? Has it not been blessed gospel from the very first? Is it not also the gospel to the very last — "everlasting gospel"?
Others root the word in something even more basic than promise — the claim the Maker has always had on the people He made.
It is called the everlasting gospel for this reason. God has always stood to men as Creator to His creatures. That is true apart from His special revelations to Israel and to Christians, and so beyond every era of His dealings. As Creator He has a right to their reverence and worship.
The angel's call in the next verse tells men to fear God and worship the Maker of heaven, earth, sea and springs. Why name God that way?
This testimony clearly matches the evil of the time. The previous chapter tells us that they worshipped the dragon, because he gave his authority to the beast, and they worshipped the beast. So men worship Satan and the Roman beast. In these circumstances the gospel identifies God as the One who created all things. What a comment on the state of the world! Men are so carried away by Satan's influence that God must spell out who He is. When He claims the worship due to Him, He has to name Himself as the One who made the heaven and the earth and the sea and the springs of water.
The verse names two audiences: those who dwell on the earth, and then every nation, tribe, tongue and people. Why that order?
In chapter 14 we find God sends a solemn message, the everlasting gospel. And with whom does He begin? With the worst — "those who dwell on the earth," which literally means "those who sit"... then the message goes out to men in general. Other passages fully confirm this. To "dwell on the earth" is not a vague description of men; it expresses a moral condition.
John sees an angel carrying the message. But who does the preaching?
Will a spiritual being really proclaim the glad tidings from mid-heaven as he speeds along?... God has given the preaching of the gospel to men and not to angels. That is true whether it is the gospel of the kingdom, of the grace, or of the glory of God... We understand that the preachers of the Everlasting Gospel will be mainly converted Jews. The result of their mission will be a great, countless crowd of saved Gentiles gathered in for millennial blessing. The flying angel shows that a wide and rapid testimony to grace, with a warning of judgment, goes out on the eve of "the day of vengeance of our God."
- Everlasting — this good news runs from Eden's promise of the Seed of the woman to the end. Commentators differ: some point back to that first promise, others to God's unchanging claim as Creator.
- Different — no one could preach the gospel of grace until Christ had died, risen and gone to heaven. So Scripture never gives it this title.
- Opposite — today's message gathers a people for heaven. The angel's message warns the earth that judgment has come.
- Timely — the angel calls men to worship the Maker of heaven, earth, sea and springs just as the world bows to the beast.
- Wide — God starts with the worst, those settled down on earth. Then He reaches every nation, tribe, tongue and people, through preachers who are men, not angels.
saying with a loud voice, Fear God and give him glory, for the hour of his judgment has come; and do homage to him who has made the heaven and the earth and the sea and fountains of waters.
Commentary for this verse has not been generated yet.
And another, a second, angel followed, saying, Great Babylon has fallen, has fallen, which of the wine of the fury of her fornication has made all nations drink.
A second angel follows the first with one sentence of doom: the great city is down. Who is Babylon? Why is her fall announced now? And what is the wine she gave the nations to drink?
The verse gives the fact and little else. It never explains who Babylon is. One writer treats it as a first notice, with the details left for later.
The third section, which can be dealt with in few words, is the warning of Babylon's fall. This is the first notice of man's false church, which has long been the chief source of corruption in religion, and which will sink further into the vile practices of the nations in the future. But in due time we shall hear clear marks and helpful details of something so disgusting to God, and so deceptive to the natural man.
The delay is not an oversight. God gives two whole chapters to this subject later, so that His people know what to keep away from.
But this corrupt system has played so large a part in the history of the world that God has thought it right to warn His people to stay completely apart from it. So in these two chapters He gives us further details about its true character and its solemn end under His judgment.
Babylon does not appear from nowhere. One writer traces her rise back to the Church's own failure.
The Church should have been a witness to God's character as light and love. Instead she has proved an unfaithful steward of the truth, and has failed as a witness to God and to Christ. Then, once the Church is morally ruined, the ground is ready for Satan to bring in the symbolic Babylon. She corrupts the earth and enslaves the nations in spirit, and they are wildly drunk with her adulteries and corruptions.
The name itself is not chosen at random. It carries the memory of the power that once held God's earthly people captive.
The name itself is significant. It was the name of Israel's great enemy, whose power held her down for seventy years... But with God that old Babylon was only a picture of a power prouder, more evil and more defiant of Him than the old Babylonian tyrant. Into her hands the Church of Christ has fallen — the heavenly people, not the earthly one. It is an old history repeated in a new setting and with other names, a fresh proof that man is morally the same in every generation.
The phrase about her cup marks her out. The older Babylon also made the nations drunk, but this wording goes further. The writer below uses an older translation, which reads "the wine of the fury of her fornication" where the ESV has "the passion of her sexual immorality."
Of the Babylon of old it was said, "Babylon has been a golden cup in the Lord's hand that made all the earth drunken: the nations have drunk of her wine; therefore the nations are mad." (Jer. 51:7.) But of the old Babylon it was never said, "the wine of the fury of her fornication." That second phrase shows that the Babylon here is not merely a political power but a spiritual one. One who claims to belong to Christ has sold herself to the world for the sake of power. She has inflamed the nations with unholy principles that work on men's passions. Babylon is fallen, and that fall is final. It is God's judgment on her, and it is a note of the everlasting gospel, which claims the earth for God and announces its rescue from those who oppress it.
The nations are not victims of force. They drank willingly, and the drinking left them out of their senses.
The Babylon of the Apocalypse has by her seductions, unholy allurements, and incitements to evil enthralled the nations. Their passions have been fearfully roused, and they are not only mad (morally, of course), but her illicit intercourse with them has wrought them up to frenzy.
Corrupt religion is not new. Yet this name belongs to one particular stage.
As long as the Holy Spirit is on earth, evil is held back to some extent, and during this time no religious system, however corrupt, is called "Babylon." But once the Holy Spirit is taken away, the empty profession shows itself in all its falsehood and rottenness. Then the Church that is Christian in name only, no longer seasoned with the salt of true believers, becomes the foul mass of corruption that receives the name Babylon.
Her fall does not come from heaven alone. The very powers that used her turn on her.
For long ages this false system has claimed to be Christian while in fact corrupting all nations. It will not only come under the judgment of God; it will also fall before men. As we read a little later, the nations, led by the beast, will destroy this false system (Rev. 17:15-18).
Her removal clears the stage for something else entirely.
Chapters 17 and 18 set out her character, her doom, and the human instruments of her destruction. Heaven celebrates her complete and everlasting ruin in the first three verses of Revelation 19, just before the marriage of the Lamb. The prostitute is destroyed, and then the bride is displayed.
- Announcement. The verse states the fact only. Chapters 17 and 18 give her character, her doom and the instruments of her destruction.
- Identity. Babylon is a corrupt religious system that carries a Christian name. It is an old history repeated in a new setting.
- Intoxication. Her wine marks her as a spiritual power, not merely a political one. She claims Christ's name, sells herself to the world for power, and inflames the nations.
- Finality. The fall is God's judgment, and it is final. The very powers that used her carry it out.
- Good news. Her fall is a note of the everlasting gospel: it claims the earth for God, and once the prostitute is gone the bride is displayed.
And another, a third, angel followed them, saying with a loud voice, If any one do homage to the beast and its image, and receive a mark upon his forehead or upon his hand,
In Revelation 14 a series of angels makes public announcements. This third one is the darkest: a shouted warning about the cost of worshipping the beast and taking his mark.
The announcements in this chapter come before the judgment itself.
There is a solemn call to repentance, and the announcement of coming judgment on the different forms of evil that have corrupted the earth. The judgments are not carried out yet. They are warnings of what is at hand, visions of what is coming — given to John, and recorded here for the comfort and guidance of believers in all ages.
The angel before this one announced the fall of Babylon, the corrupt religious system. One writer explains why this third message is heavier.
Babylon is not the only evil that must perish so that Christ may reign. Removing Babylon only makes room at first for another form of evil to develop fully, one more openly blasphemous than this. The woman makes way for the man — what at least claims to be subject to Christ makes way for what is in open revolt against Him. So the woe threatened here is far more sweeping and terrible than before. There are people of God who come out of Babylon, and who therefore were in her to come out (Rev. 18:4). But the beast in its final form guarantees the ruin of all who follow it.
The verse names two places for the mark. It first appears one chapter earlier. There a writer reads its placement as the language of slavery.
A mysterious mark is put on the right hand or on the forehead of everyone. The only exceptions are the martyrs, who lay down their lives in firm and faithful protest against this satanic claim. The mark on the "hand" would mean that the branded person was an active slave of the beast. Stamped on the "forehead," it would serve as a public acknowledgement of slavery. Either way, all must own the absolute supremacy of the beast and worship him. It was usual to brand slaves with the name or special mark of their owner. Paul (Gal. 6:17), Israel in her tribes (Rev. 7:3), the preserved of Judah (Rev. 14:1), and the glorified and heavenly saints (Rev. 22:4) are marked by God as belonging to Him, and that publicly.
The angel does not murmur. The volume has a purpose, and so does the cup he names.
The "third angel" says "with a loud voice" — so that all may hear, and so be without excuse. 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 ingredients to soften it. It is pure, unmixed wrath.
Refusing the mark means facing the beast's anger instead of God's. That choice is the test of faith.
A third angel announces the punishment of the inhabitants of the earth who worship the beast. Men must choose between the wrath of God and the wrath of the beast. The great proof of faith at that time will be in not worshipping the beast.
Those who hold out are described in verse 12 as keeping God's commandments and the faith of Jesus — and one writer notes how little they may know compared with a Christian today, and how much it will still carry them through.
When people generally are being forced to comply with the demands and commands of the beasts, these will keep the commandments of God; and they will do it because they cling to "the faith of Jesus." They may not know Him in that full way which is the Christian's portion today, but they will know that Jesus, who once came and was despised and rejected, is the true Christ of God, and the faith of this will possess them in spite of everything.
Readers stumble at the severity of what follows in verses 10 and 11. One writer answers that this sin is the highest sin ever reached.
Mankind started on its fallen and lawless course fascinated by the lie of the devil, "You will be like God" (Gen. 3:5). Under the same evil leadership, and through the two beasts, mankind will make its supreme and final bid to reach the goal of its desire. At this point human sin reaches its climax and rises to its highest expression. Is it not fitting that the most bitter judgment should fall on the highest sin?
The wording of the penalty settles a question people still argue over: whether everyone is saved in the end. This writer quotes an older translation of verse 11.
It is worth noting the character of this judgment, in a day when universalism is so popular even among professing Christians. True, it falls on one class of people. But even if only some must endure their punishment for "ages of ages," with "no rest day nor night," that completely disproves the claim that there is no such thing as eternal punishment.
- Warned first. The judgment has not fallen yet. The angel announces it in advance, for the comfort and guidance of believers in every age.
- Warned loudly. The loud voice is deliberate — all may hear, so none can plead ignorance when the cup comes.
- Warned about a brand. The mark on the hand marks an active slave of the beast; on the forehead, a public confession of it. God marks His own people too.
- Warned of no exit. People could still come out of Babylon. The beast in his final form guarantees the ruin of everyone who follows him.
- Warned at the climax. This is the old lie "you will be like God" pushed to its limit. The highest sin draws the heaviest judgment, on those who chose the beast's wrath over God's.