Reading for July 8th

 Read Revelation 14.6-20.In 14.6-20: The announcements 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 foreheads, see 13.16. In verse 10: The wine of God's wrath 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; Mark 13.26. For the Son of Man, see 1.3. 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 8.3-5, 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 or 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); thus the whole earth. Connected as it is with grain and grapes-bread and wine-the allusion here is to the blood of Christ that covers the whole earth in the Eucharist. Comments or Questions..