Revelation 8:1–3

The seven-sealed book, or scroll, is in the open hand of Jehovah (5:1-2), and the Lamb opens its seals one by one… Now He opens the final one, and the book of God's counsels about the earth lies open before us. The plans and counsels of our God about the vast interests of earth are no longer a secret. Neither are the means and manner by which they will be carried out. All are disclosed. But why is the seventh seal separated from the preceding six?… A whole chapter (Rev. 7) comes in between the sixth and seventh seals, breaking the orderly sequence of events. The seventh seal opens the way to still further and severer judgments. Before it is opened, the veil is drawn aside, and two great companies out of Israel and the nations are brought into the scene — the fruit of a wide work of grace carried on even while judgment is devastating the earth.

When the seventh seal is opened, what follows is not the judgment that came with each of the earlier seals. It is silence in heaven for the space of half an hour. This surely shows how solemn the crisis is that has now arrived. It is, as it were, a divine pause before the last and most awful judgments fall on the inhabited world.

"Silence in heaven" does not mean that the songs and praises of the redeemed are silent. We must read the silence alongside the subject in hand, which is judgment… The course of judgment is halted. There is a pause both in the announcing and in the carrying out of further punishments… "Half an hour" means only a very brief period in which judicial action is held back. The breaking of the seventh seal brings not judgment, but an ominous silence. It is a calm before a storm, like a stillness in nature preceding a tempest.

There have been many guesses about what this "silence in heaven" can mean. Perhaps no one has suggested a better thought than this. Every intelligent being in heaven stood in solemn awe, because the Lord Himself was now about to go out in flaming fiery vengeance, to judge the world in righteousness, and to put all enemies under His feet.

The seventh seal must come after the sixth… There was a brief pause of solemn expectancy, the lull that comes before the storm about to blow… Heaven takes note of God's ways. The silence was there, not on earth. Signal judgments were hanging over all creation. How strange to imagine that silence in heaven for half an hour could picture the millennial rest!

The seventh seal was not so much a judgment in itself, as that which contained in it the seven trumpets, and was the signal for their sounding.

Divine judgment, when it falls, is not only sure but swift, yet it is never hurried. During this interval of silence the seven angels prepared themselves to sound their trumpets. There is a calm serenity about the divine action in judgment, and God postpones it to the last possible moment.

When the seventh seal is opened, the judgment that came with each earlier seal does not follow. Instead there is silence in heaven for half an hour. This surely shows how solemn the crisis is that has now come. It is a kind of divine pause before the last and most terrible judgments fall on the inhabited world. Then the seven angels who stood before God appear, and they receive seven trumpets. Notice that the trumpets grow out of the seventh seal.

These angels are clearly a distinguished and select group. The definite article shows it — "The seven angels." So does the honoured place given to them — "who stand before God." These seven are not the same as the seven who pour out the bowls (Rev. 15:1). Only about the trumpet angels is such a position stated: "before God."

There are distinctions among the angelic hosts. They are arranged in various orders and ranks, but all, from the archangel down to the least, are servants. They have no relationship to God founded on redemption. They are servants, and never rise out of that position, nor do they wish to. What the angel Gabriel said of himself — "I am Gabriel. I stand in the presence of God" (Luke 1:19) — is said here of these seven angels who stand before God. As for the number seven, they represent the full power of God in judicial judgment.

Even the highest of God's creatures always stands in the place of subjection; the trumpets were given to them. Only the Creator has the right to act as sovereign. But why trumpets? No wind instrument was more widely used in the national life of Israel than the trumpet. It called them together in public assembly. Its loud blast summoned them to war, and directed them when to advance and when to retreat... Its loud warning notes announced that danger or an enemy was near... "The seven trumpets" mean a complete and full announcement. The mystic trumpets of Revelation must not be confused with the literal trumpets of Old Testament times.

The trumpet stands for a loud and solemn call from God. It is God summoning men. If they have rejected His grace, they must hear these sharp warnings of His judgment, even if they forget them. People might not have so easily seen the seals as God stepping in, if He had not told us beforehand that this is what they were... But when we come to the trumpets it is not so necessary to announce that they are heaven-sent judgments. Their sound or summons is quite plain and urgent. Their appeal to men is far clearer.

The judgments that follow are God's answer to the cry of His people. Yet they were in His heart for them before they ever cried. This is what the order teaches... So God prepares everything beforehand. Even so, He must be asked before He acts for them, and that is why we next have the prayers of all the saints going up to God. There is now a union of all hearts together: the common distress leads to united prayer.

"Another angel." Who is he? We are satisfied that the angel priest is Christ, our great High Priest. The service at the altars proves it, for both the bronze altar and the golden altar are named here. No mere creature could make the prayers of saints effective. Only One who has in Himself an independent right and ability could do that. Further, the action at the altars is the work of a mediator, standing between suffering, praying saints on earth and God. Since Christianity knows of only "one Mediator between God and men, the Man Christ Jesus" (1 Tim. 2:5), the proof is undeniable that the angel priest is Christ and Christ alone, not a representative person or company, as some interpreters take it. The words "another angel" are used of Christ three times in these visions (Rev. 8:3; 10:1; 18:1). The title suggests reserve and distance. Under the trumpet judgments Christ steps back and takes an angel's title and character.

Wherever "the altar" appears with nothing added to describe it, I believe it always means the bronze altar — the first point of contact between God and people on earth. There the whole burnt offering was burned, along with the other sweet-smelling offerings. The fire was taken from there to make the incense rise from its own altar in the holy place… If the same altar were meant at the start of verse 3 as at the end, the full description would surely have come at the first mention, not the second.

The incense used in the tabernacle was made of four ingredients, listed in Exodus 30:34-36. It was mixed to a formula God gave. Anyone who made it or used it without God's permission was put to death… No doubt the four precious ingredients, three of which are named only once, show the moral beauties and perfections of Christ as seen in the four Gospels. But it needed the fire of judgment to draw out the full fragrance of Christ, and only the cross could do that.

Then another angel — Christ — comes and stands at the altar, and gives efficacy (this is, I believe, the force of it) to the prayers of the saints. It struck me, the other day, that when we see the saints as priests, they do not pray at all. But here, when Christ is priest, He adds incense and gives efficacy to the saints' prayers. These are suffering saints on earth.

The altar stands before the throne — not the mercy-seat here, but the throne of judgment. From this golden altar of incense the prayers of the remnant for deliverance and judgment rise to God, perfumed with all the fragrance of Christ, and draw down a speedy answer.

We are told that His incense is offered with "the prayers of all saints." May this not show that in these judgments we see an answer to the prayers of all the saints of Old Testament times, as well as those of the great tribulation?

There is always the happy thought that thousands of hearts may be quietly talking with God when even the eye of a prophet can find none. It is a great comfort to remember, too, that there is One at least who never grows tired of praying for all saints… His incense added to our prayers is what makes the weakest words of our faith rise with welcome from the altar of our worship (Rev. 8:3).