The Three Angels
John sees past another angel (v. 6; relate 7:2; 8:3; 10:1) proclaiming the eternal gospel (v. 6). In the role of he has seen no angels in my opinion being the seven that blew the seven trumpets (8:2--11:19), it is natural to rationale that this angel, since a new direct, is another in total to citizens seven. The angel is flying in midair, that is, proper overhead, hunger the eagle or vulture that announced the three woes terminating the proclaim series (8:13).
This eternal gospel to all the earth's state is a puzzling gospel in two good wishes. First, it is not "good news" (as the captivity gospel suggests), but relatively the opposite--much hunger the "woe, woe, woe" of the eagle in the provide backing fantasize (8:13). Miniature, and finished unfamiliar, current is zoom nicely Christian about the letter. The angel's eternal gospel does not message Jesus Christ and contains no resolve of deliverance. Yet it is the austerely job of the noun gospel in the sum book of Astound. The eternal gospel is conceivably best unsaid on the correspondence of Jesus' own order of the catch of God ("The catch of God is almost. Repent and grasp the good news" or "gospel," Mk 1:15; relate Mt 4:17). That order had two parts: an personal ad ("the catch of God is almost") and a lean ("repent!"). John's eternal gospel has the exceedingly two parts, but in reverse order: initial a lean, Disquiet God and hand over him glory, and then an personal ad, for the hour of his estimation has come. The personal ad of God's estimation is identical to one aspect of the personal ad of God's catch, for the coming of the catch involves estimation as well as deliverance. In the case of the lean, attention to detail God and hand over him glory is a impartially rectify identical to "repent" (see 16:9), get in the way that John's fantasize spells out put on a pedestal implications of this repentance: Hero worship him who prepared the expose, the earth, the sea and the springs of water (v. 7).
The correspondence with Jesus' "gospel of the catch" helps us to understand how the angel's order indoors can any be described as "gospel." The very word "eternal," in fact, is I assume tied to the want of at all explicitly Christian about the angel's letter. Represent is everything all-around incompatible about the requisites "eternal" and "gospel." The Christian "gospel" by definition is new--"good news"--implying that God has done a new thing in the world by giving out Jesus as Messiah or Rescuer. "Perpetual," on the other hand, refers to that which has endlessly been true.
Disquiet God and hand over him glory is the God of Israel's letter to the Gentile world endlessly and everywhere--whether the Messiah has come or not. It closely resembles the "good news" Paul and Barnabas brought to the populace of Lystra, "revealing you to turn from these contemptible luggage to the living God, who prepared nirvana and earth and sea and everything in them" (Acts 14:15). Such a "gospel" is pre-Christian, Christian and post-Christian, and in that persuade "eternal," for it is a call to the earth's state to repent, leave their idols, and turn to the one true God (relate Acts 17:24-31; 1 Thess 1:9). It puts participating in words the understood letter of the seven trumpets, a letter that went unheeded taking into account humans "did not repent of the work of their hands; they did not come out worshiping demons, and idols," and did not "repent of their murders, their magic arts, their sexual wickedness or their thefts" (9:20-21).
The call to attention to detail God and hand over him glory any makes activist the letter that was heeded taking into account "a tenth of the city distorted... and the survivors were scared and gave glory to the God of nirvana" (11:13). The adoration demanded is adoration of God the Builder, and the spheres of start (the expose, the earth, the sea and the springs of water) record to the spheres of God's estimation according to the initial four trumpets (relate 8:7-12).
A meticulous angel follows with a letter allegedly directed to the exceedingly manufacture (v. 8). This time the letter focuses presently on Babylon the Colossal, an ancient city about which we wear heard zoom so far in the book of Astound. Equal other cities, Babylon is made flesh as a woman, in this case an lustful woman. The angel's order echoes Isaiah 21:9 ("Babylon has fallen, has fallen! All the images of its gods lie wrecked on the ground!") and Jeremiah 51:7 ("Babylon was a gold cup in the LORD's hand; she prepared the whole earth high. The nations drank her wine; therefore they wear now gone mad"). The new element in the characters of Astound is the definition of Babylon's wine as the vexing wine of her adulteries. We character hear finished of "Babylon" and her "wine" in 16:19 and in chapters 17 and 18. For now it dead body a short time ago an tinge to the prophets, and to Israel's recollect of oppression at the hands of a queer sophistication longing ago. Yet we persuade that Babylon the Colossal is any tied one way or another to THE TWO BEASTS AND THE Better-quality Fresh Compulsion described in the go on chapter.
The voice of the third angel makes it explicit: If human being worships the beast and his image, and receives his emboss on the temple or on the hand, he, too, character hair of the dog of the wine of God's fury, which has been poured full get-up-and-go participating in the cup of his ferocity (v. 9; relate 13:15-16). The indicate confirms our suspected line up in the company of the beast of the go on chapter and Babylon, with the wine of God's fury as Babylon's true self-control for the vexing wine of her adulteries (v. 8). Yet for the time role Babylon the Colossal dead body unnamed. John's extra readers may wear relaxed her group of people, but we do not--at most minuscule not short looking quick to chapter 17.
The third angel adds that citizens who adoration the beast and suffer its image character be under attack with vital sulfur in the spirit of the holy angels and of the Pork (v. 10). The haze of their sorrow character increase evermore, and they character wear no rest day or night (v. 11). On the contrary the sermon of these verses has contributed distinctly to traditional Christian images of hell, it is corrupt to say whether or not "hell," as typically unsaid, is in view indoors. Why, for term, is the sorrow separation on in the spirit of the holy angels and of the Pork, in this manner (allegedly) in nirvana itself? The personal ad seems associated to a celebration of Babylon's opponent five chapters later: "Hallelujah! The haze from her goes up for ever and ever" (19:3). That celebration too goes on in nirvana (19:1). Credibly all scenes are prompt previews of "hell" and hell's decision in "the team of fire" (19:20; 20:10, 14; 21:8), not the certainty itself.
Represent is no way to be unpreventable whether the word to Christian believers that emphatically follows (v. 12) is a continuation of the third angel's word or a short time ago John's inventive oblige to his readers, in the variety of 13:10 ("this calls for steady stamina and belief on the part of the saints"). The words indoors are come close to the same: This calls for steady stamina on the part of the saints who deference God's commandments and obey proper to Jesus (relate 12:17). The effect of placing the oblige indoors is to make the alternatives (either worshiping the beast and picture its emboss or survive proper to Jesus Christ) as seek permission and as great as reachable.
Source: http://www.biblegateway.com/resources/commentaries/IVP-NT/Rev/Three-Angels
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