And I took the little book out of the hand of the angel, and ate it up; and it was in my mouth as honey, sweet; and when I had eaten it my belly was made bitter.
John obeys, and the little scroll does two different things to him. Why should God's own word be honey on the tongue and bitterness inside?
Eating as Making It Your Own
The picture is symbolic, and prophets before John acted it out. One writer explains what eating stands for, and why the mouth tastes one thing and the inside another.
The prophet eating the book is no harder to understand than Jeremiah eating the words of the Lord. To eat is to make the thing one's own, to take it into one's own being. The Christian prophet eats the scroll and finds it both sweet and bitter. This reminds us of a similar symbolic action by the Jewish prophet Ezekiel. The first effect of prophetic communication — the scroll in the mouth — was sweetness, the sweetness of honey. But when you weigh the revelations and think about the judgments they announce, the next effect is bitterness and sorrow. Prophecy both gladdens and saddens, as it contains announcements both of joy and grief.
Why "Little" and Why "Open"
The two words attached to the scroll — which older translations call a little book — are deliberate. One writer explains what makes it little, what makes it open, and what makes it sweet and bitter.
Notice the clear contrast between the little book which the prophet here takes and eats, and the great book we have already seen sealed with seven seals. It was sweet as honey to the taste that the true and all-worthy King should reign. But how bitter to the feelings that unsparing judgment should fall on the mass of the Jews, and still more on the proud Christian world. Why a little book? and why open? It is little because it deals with a fairly narrow sphere, already familiar in the prophets. It is open because things are no longer described in the mysterious dress that the Seals, and still more the Trumpets, wrapped them in.
The Bitterness Is Self-Judgment
Commentators differ on where the bitterness lands. Some place it in the judgments announced. Others place it closer to home, in what the truth does to the person who swallows it.
Does this not show that the truth of all God is going to bring in — the unfolding of coming glories — is indeed sweet to our taste? And yet it involves the setting aside of the flesh, and the utter judgment of all that the flesh craves. We have to discover that as believers the flesh is still in us. So the truth, however sweet to the taste, brings bitter exercises as it uncovers the true character of our own hearts.
The bitterness is not just about the future. Follow the truth through, and it begins to ask something of you.
If followed up, if the book is really eaten, it leads to self-judgment and to separation from evil. This will always be bitter. Not one of us finds it easy to take the place that God's Word would put him in during this time of Christ's rejection. And so the point here is that God's truth makes demands.
Eat First, Then Speak
The order matters: the book goes in first. One writer draws out the lesson for anyone who passes God's word on to others.
If God sends His servant to prophesy, He will first make him fit for his service; and so John must first "eat" the book. He must take in and digest these divine communications before he can pass them on to others in the right way… The truth must first become our own by inward application. Only then can we be taken up and used to testify of it to others. To try to "prophesy" before we have "eaten" and "digested" will only expose our nakedness in front of the enemy.
Joy and Sorrow Together
Both tastes stay with the believer who looks ahead. One writer shows where that mixture leads.
So the thought of the end of God's ways is sweet to the taste and glorious to think about. But men are wilful and blind, and Israel in particular. That is what makes judgment necessary before God can reach His end, and the thought of it gives sorrow to the heart. We look ahead, and it is "with joy and sorrow mingled," and so we enter to some degree into the spirit of our Lord Jesus Christ.
Summary
- Eat — to eat the book is to make it your own, not just to read it; John does what Jeremiah and Ezekiel did before him.
- Sweet — the honey is the coming reign of the rightful King. The scroll is little and open because its sphere is narrow and its meaning now plain.
- Bitter — once swallowed, the truth sets the flesh aside and calls for self-judgment and separation. It makes demands.
- Then speak — speak only what you have eaten and digested; undigested truth exposes the servant before the enemy.
- Mingled — joy and sorrow travel together, and the servant who carries both enters something of Christ's own spirit.