Revelation 11:12 Commentary - Dr Peter Masters

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Revelation 11:12

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‘They heard a great voice come from heaven saying unto them,’ – after the hoped-for revival, if that is a correct understanding – ‘Come up hither. And they ascended up to heaven in a cloud, and their enemies beheld them.’ That is the great public – not secret, but public – rapture of all believers left on earth, which will take place at Christ’s visible return. While the ascension of Christ was a private matter witnessed only by his disciples, this will be seen by the whole world. The voice that speaks is the voice of God. The voice summons them to heaven, to the place where the speaker is. It is the most glorious summons that any could receive. It is a command that they will joyfully obey as God animates them with new power. It is the signal of their escape from all the corruption of the world into the eternal freedom of the people of God. It is the beginning of eternal bliss at the right hand of God. They go as those that belong there, for their names are written in heaven and heavenly mansions have been prepared for them. They go as those that have a right to be there for they have been justified by God and made as those who have never sinned, who possess personally a sufficient righteousness. In bringing them to heaven God has acted in perfect integrity; all his infinite holiness supports them being there. He has no reservations or doubts about whether they should be there. This is true even though they are those who were once among the foulest sinners on earth, the most deceitful, the most unclean, the most cruel. But they have been washed, justified, sanctified and now glorified.

Application

God will vindicate his people. Those who the world has treated with the contempt, he will exalt with the greatest honour. Their enemies will see it and be unable to resist it. The world will know that these are the ones that God favours. Have they opposed the beloved children of the Lord? Have they hated them and persecuted them and dared to lift up their hands to kill them? Yes, they have done it. There is no denying it now, though they might wish to do so. Did God see what they did? Yes, he did.

They drew completely the wrong conclusion from the fact that God did not intervene on behalf of his children, just as men drew entirely the wrong conclusion when Christ allowed himself to be crucified. They thought that either God did not care about these worthless ones, or that he could not help them, or that there is no God to help anyway. What he was really doing was beyond their understanding. That he could salvage any good from this situation was beyond their imagination.

Will it matter to the world that they see the church received by God into heaven? It will matter more than words can tell. Those favoured ones have gone to a place to which the godless can never come. As surely as these despised witnesses have been received into heaven, the door has been shut against the unbelieving world. This is the end of all opportunity to repent. It is no more possible that they could go up to heaven than that a man today could fly with his bare arms.

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Revelation 11:12 Commentary and Bible Study