Revelation 14:9-12 And the third angel followed them, saying with a loud voice, If any man worship the beast and his image… (Bengel). Undoubtedly it is so. It makes our flesh creep and our heart shudder as we read it. It is to be noted, that these three angels (vers. 6, 8, 9), who "excel. in strength" bear messages of increasing severity. The first bids us "fear." The second tells of the dread judgment upon Babylon. This third threatens all men everywhere with like and yet more awful doom, if they "worship the beast" or "receive his mark." Now - I. WHAT DOES ALL THIS MEAN? 1. It seems to mean that the ungodly shall be punished with incessant and unspeakable torments in hell fire, and that forever and ever. This is the doctrine that has been deduced frown this passage again and again. It is one of the buttresses of the popular theology. It is always quoted in support of this doctrine, and is regarded as one of the chief of the proof texts. But if it do teach this, we ask: (1) Would not the language be more clear? Who certainly knows what the two beasts, the first and second, stand for? Who can do more than guess, with more or less of probability, what St. John meant by them; much less what it was intended we, in our day, should understand by them? And what is "the mark of the beast "? and how do men receive it "in their forehead," or their "hand"? We may think we understand all this. But can any one be sure? But consequences so awful as are threatened here would not be told of in language so ambiguous. If we today be threatened with such doom, the offences that incur it will surely be set forth in words unmistakably plain, and not such as we find here. (2) May not temporal judgments be so described? May not the same language be used for something quite different from what it is said this means? Yes, for Isaiah thus speaks of Edom (Isaiah 34:8-14): "The smoke thereof shall go up forever." The temporal judgments that came upon Edom are thus described. And so, in Revelation 18., we have word for word the fulfilment on earth, not in Gehenna, of the threatenings we are now considering (cf. vers. 9, 15, 18). Why, then, may not temporal judgments be what are meant here? (3) Why, in the closing vision of this book, are death, hell, and the lake of fire, pain, sorrow, death, and all such things, declared to have "passed away" and to be "no more" (cf. Revelation 21.)? All these things have not been transferred to some other planet, to defile its surface and darken its heavens. They have "passed away," he alone abiding who "doeth the will of God." (4) Why is the language of the Bible so constantly of such a kind as to lend the strongest colour to the belief that death, destruction, perishing not a never ending existence in suffering - is the doom of the finally impenitent? That this is so can hardly be denied. The passage before us is, probably, the only one which seems to teach everlasting suffering. (5) And, if it were a Divine doctrine, would it not, like all other Divine doctrines, "commend itself to every man's conscience in the sight of God"? The truth that St. Paul preached did so commend itself. If this be part of it, why does it not also so commend itself? It is notorious that it does not. Conscience revolts against it, and insistence upon it has generated more unbelief and atheism than, perhaps, any other cause whatsoever. We, therefore, cannot believe that what this passage seems to many minds to mean, it actually does mean. But: 2. We note the following facts. (1) The occasion of this threatening. Terrible persecution, when it was absolutely necessary to fortify and strengthen the minds of Christians with every consideration that would help them to be faithful under the dreadful trials that beset them. (2) And in this way this threatening, and others like it (cf. Matthew 10.), were used, and were no small help to the steadying of the wavering will and the strengthening of the feeble heart. "The ancient Cyprian often strengthened his exhortations to steadfastness under bloody persecutions with this word." (3) The fulfilment of this word (cf. Revelation 18, and parallels). Therefore, whilst not limiting it to temporal punishments: 3. We regard it as telling of that "everlasting destruction from the presence of the Lord," which shall be the doom of all apostates and all who persist in rebellion against the Lord. II. WHAT DOES IT TEACH? Amongst other lessons these: 1. The retribution of God upon unfaithful and wicked men is an awful reality. 2. That in the midst of temptation the remembrance of this will he a great help. 3. That it is the love of God which tells us the truth. 4. That they are fools and self destroyed who will not "come unto" Christ that they "might have life." - S. C. Parallel Verses KJV: And the third angel followed them, saying with a loud voice, If any man worship the beast and his image, and receive his mark in his forehead, or in his hand, |
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