Revelation 6:12 Commentary - Dr Peter Masters

Navigator

Revelation 6:12

Comments

This of course stands for the final judgement, but also for all judgements that God brings in. He judged Babylon, Greece, Rome. There have been persecutions, and then God has judged the persecutors and has ended it. Nations go through great problems and trials. Assyria thought that by her own power she was exalted over the nations and was able to do whatever she willed to Israel, but God says, ‘Wherefore it shall come to pass, that when the Lord hath performed his whole work upon mount Zion and on Jerusalem, I will punish the fruit of the stout heart of the king of Assyria, and the glory of his high looks’ (Isaiah 10:12).An earthquake was the picture of judgement in the Old Testament. There are many references in the prophets to the sun and moon being disturbed. Some interpret these things figuratively, and apply them to the shaking of human authorities, but these things could be literal, and perhaps are connected to the disturbances we begin to see in the climate and in the earth’s stability as a cradle for life. It will be a terrifying occasion. The sun is black; it can be seen, but it is a defunct and finished object, a sun that can be seen as a dead thing. It is obvious to all that as an empowering agent for all life it is finished. All human optimism is shattered and misplaced confidence in created objects is undermined. If there is no sun, then surely there is no mankind. The moon has taken on the colour of blood – a terrifying thing. This is the judgement day of God, and all will tremble before God.

Application

How could God, who made the sun and moon partly for signs, not use them to signify the end of the world? What sign could they give that the end of the world was near? It would be entirely appropriate if they were to withdraw their light. This would also be a fitting judgment upon mankind who has come to trust in the permanence and stability of the physical world far more than he trusts in the Lord. Nothing could be more calculated to strike terror into his heart than the failure of what he has come to see as the source of life on earth – our local star. Luke describes the state of those living at the time of Christ’s second coming, ‘men’s hearts failing them from fear and the expectation of those things which are coming on the earth, for the powers of heaven will be shaken’ (Luke 21:26). The cause of men’s fear will not just be social upheaval, the fall of earth’s rulers, but the failure of the heavenly bodies and fear for the ability of the earth itself to continue. This is a fitting judgment on those who have worshipped the creature more than the Creator.

Questions

Outline

Purpose

Introduction

Revelation 6:12 Commentary and Bible Study