Reading for May 7th

Read Revelation 14.6-20 In 14/6-20: The announcement of the end. For angel, see comment on 2.1. The eternal gospel is the central message of Revelation, the proper worship of God. In verse 8: Babylon was the first destroyer of Jerusalem, even as Rome was the second (2 Kings 24; Isa 21.9). In verse 9: For the mark on their forheads see 13.16. In verse 10: The wine of God's wrath here launches a series of bitter, vioent iamges of questionable morality if viewed as something separate from the choice to worship the beast. In verse 11: There is no rest implies that this is the present experience contrast v. 13, those who die in the Lord will rest. In verse 12: The call for endurance shows that the real purpose of this section is to admonish the faithful to resistance. In verse 14: The white cloud is the traditional apocalyptic symbol of the final judgment; Dan 7.13; Mk 13.26. For the Son of man; see 1.13. In verses 15-18:: The harvest is both a traditional symbol for judgment and a metaphor of consequences: the grapes are ripe (see Joel 3.13; Rev 16.6). The angel with authority over fire recalls 6.3-5, also a judgment scene. In verses 19-20: The wine press is a traditional image of God's wrath (Isa 63.1- 4), but here it is trodden outside the city-a place of rejection (1 Kings 21.13) but also connected with the place of Jesus' death (Heb 13.11-12). Two hundred miles is literally 1,600 stadia, the 1, 600 being symbolic of earth (4x4) and wholeness (10x10) thuse the whole earth. Connected as it is with grain and grape-bread and wine-the allusion here is to the blood of Christ that covers the whole earth in the Eucharist. Comments or Questions..