Revelation 7:1 Commentary and Bible Study

Chapter 6 has taken us right to the end of time, and shown us the judgement day. That marked the end of the second section of the book, and we now come back to the start of the gospel age in this third section which continues to the end of chapter 11. Although chapter 7 could be placed in the section two along with chapters 4 to 6 – it would then be seen as looking back – it seems rather to be looking forward in preparation for what is coming next: the sounding of the seven trumpets by the seven angels. The trumpets of warning are judgements, and we learn from those chapters that God’s judgement is not all reserved until the end of time. A small portion of it is poured out in stages throughout the history of the world. What is the purpose of that? These are portions, little foretastes, of the punishment that will come upon sin meted out in advance, even in this world as a warning to people to repent. An epidemic may play this role, or an earthquake. Many may be alarmed and frightened, and certainly we read of testimonies of people who have seen their houses crumble to dust, and the loss of all their possessions and all that they lived for, and it has spoken to them, and they have been shaken. The world is constantly being warned: that we are but men and women, and there are powers far greater than us, and we are subject to them, and we are in the hands of a God of holiness. But these trumpets are reformative judgements; they are punishments designed to reform. There is an opportunity still to repent and to be warned.Six of the seven seals have been opened, but the seventh seal will not be opened until chapter 8. That seventh seal contains all that that happens when the seven trumpets are blown, for the vision of the seven trumpets is telescoped inside the seventh seal. In chapter 8-9 there is no reference to people being saved, but they are separated out here. We will read there frightening dismal passages, and we might be crushed if not for what we read here, which tells us that God has not forgotten his people but has protected them through all these upheavals. The scene shifts now to the sealing of the servants of God. The same root word is used both for the seven seals securing the scroll and for the sealing of the servants of God, but the two things are quite distinct. ‘After these things’ – this doesn’t mean that the matters spoken of in chapter 7 occur after the events of chapter 6; it refers to the order in which John received these visions. The chapter opens with the four mighty angels, poised to release the judgment of God on the earth. The four corners of the earth simply means that this is something that affects the entire world – the four compass points; this is universal, just as chapter 6. Some treat chapter 7 as an interlude between sections 2 and 3, but it is better seen as belonging to the third section of the book (chapters 7-11), for this sealing protects those who live on the earth. It is about the security of the saints in the midst of all the warning and judgments that God pours.