The Seven Vials — Part 3: “It Is Done”

According to Inmillennialism, Revelation describes God’s first-century judgment of apostate Israel. It does so in visions two through six.¹

In vision two, seven seals reveal that judgment. Seven trumpets announce it in vision three. In vision four, seven actors dramatize the judgment.

Now, in vision five, the saints in heaven sing the Song of Moses (Rev. 15:1–4). Seven angels apply God’s judgment to Israel by pouring it out of their vials (i.e., bowls; Rev. 15:5–16:21).²

An angel has already identified Jerusalem as the target of judgment. This is “where our Lord was crucified.” She is “the great city, which spiritually is called Sodom and Egypt” (Rev. 11:8).

Egypt symbolizes Jerusalem. So, this fifth vision describes her judgment with images taken from God’s judgment of Egypt in the Exodus. The Vision of Seven Trumpets also used them.

David Chilton provides a useful comparison of these judgment images. The following is a modification of his table:³

No.	Vials	Trumpets	Plagues on Egypt
1	On the land, producing sores (Rev. 16:2)	On the land (Rev. 8:7)	Boils (Exod. 9:8–12)
2	On the sea, which becomes blood (Rev. 16:3)	On the sea, which becomes blood (Rev. 8:8–9)	Waters become blood (Exod. 7:17–21)
3	On rivers, waters become blood (Rev. 16:4–7)	On rivers, waters become wormwood (Rev. 8:10–11)	Waters become blood (Exod. 7:17–21)
4	On sun, causing it to scorch (Rev. 16:8–9)	Sun, moon, and stars darkened (Rev. 8:12)	Darkness (Exod. 10:21–23)
5	On the throne of the Beast (Rev. 16:10–11)	Demonic locusts torment men (Rev. 9:1–12)	Locusts (Exod. 10:4–20)
6	On the Euphrates; invasion of frog-demons (Rev. 16:12–16)	Army from Euphrates (Rev. 9:13–21)	Invasion of frogs (Exod. 8:2–4)
7	On the air, causing storm, earthquake, and hail (Rev. 16:17–21)	Voices, storm, earthquake, hail (Rev. 11:15–19)	Hail (Exod. 9:18–26)

There are some differences between the two visions, and between them and the Exodus. Still, the similarities are striking.

This analysis will help as we show how inmillennialism interprets this vision.

First Vial

Like God judged the land of Egypt, wrath from the first vial falls “upon the land” (Rev. 16:2, YLT) of Israel. We have provided justification for translating the Greek word gē as “land” instead of “earth.”⁴

Inmillennialism takes Revelation to be an amplification of the Olivet Discourse. The latter deals with God’s judgment of Jerusalem and the Temple in Jesus’s generation. As John Gill says, “the land of Judea” would mourn.⁵

God was about to judge the “Egypt” of Revelation like he had judged Egypt in Moses’s day. In neither case does his judgment affect the entire earth.

Second Vial

“The second angel poured out his vial upon the sea; and it became as the blood of a dead man: and every living soul died in the sea” (Rev. 16:3). Josephus provides the “kernel” of physical reality for this imagery. The Romans made the Sea of Galilee bloody during the “great tribulation” (Matt. 24:21; Rev. 7:14) during the Jewish wars of AD 66–70. We saw this in a previous post.⁶

Third Vial

The objects of wrath in this vision “have shed the blood of saints and prophets” (Rev. 16:6). They are apostate Jerusalem and Israel.

On the day he gave the Olivet Discourse, Jesus accused the scribes and Pharisees. They would continue their persecution of his messengers. He said:

Behold, I send unto you prophets, and wise men, and scribes: and some of them ye shall kill and crucify; and some of them shall ye scourge in your synagogues, and persecute them from city to city. . . . O Jerusalem, Jerusalem, thou that killest the prophets, and stonest them which are sent unto thee. . . ! (Matt. 23:34, 37; emphasis added)

Jesus is speaking of events in his generation (Matt. 23:36). This included the years between his resurrection in AD 30 and his judgment of the Temple in AD 70.

So, Jerusalem is the murderer of God’s prophets. To make this clear, Jesus says, “it cannot be that a prophet perish out of Jerusalem” (Luke 13:33; emphasis added).

The third vial shows God pouring his wrath on these murders (Rev. 16:4–7). It fell on the land of Israel soon after John wrote Revelation.

Fourth Vial

The fourth vial contains fire (Rev. 16:8–9). Josephus also records the “kernel” of literal truth underneath this imagery. As we saw earlier,⁷ Vespasian was the Roman general overseeing the Roman armies in the land of Israel. He “set fire, not only to the city itself, but to all the villas and small cities that were round about it; some of them were quite destitute of inhabitants.”⁸ Josephus provides several other examples of Roman scorched earth practices in the land.⁹

This vial shows what Jerusalem and the land of Israel experienced when the Temple fell.

Fifth Vial

The fifth vial affects “the seat of the beast” (Rev. 16:10–11). According to inmillennialism, the Beast represents the Roman Empire. During Israel’s judgment, Rome herself suffered darkness and pain.

Chilton cites F. W. Farrar on God’s judgment of Rome in the AD 66–70 period. It came through

the horrors inflicted upon Rome and Romans in the civil wars by provincial governors. . . . Vespasian and Mucianus deliberately planned to starve the Roman populace; and in the fierce struggle of the Vitellians against Sabinus and Domitian, and the massacre which followed, there occurred the event which sounded so portentously in the ears of every Roman—the burning to the ground of the Temple of the Capitoline Jupiter, on December 19^th, A. D. 69. It was not the least of the signs of the times that the space of one year saw wrapped in flames the two most hallowed Temples of the ancient world—the Temple of Jerusalem and the Temple of the great Latin God. . . . An observer would have thought Rome in the grip of a simultaneous orgy of violence and dissipation.¹⁰

God would later destroy the Roman Empire, in part due to the growth of Christ’s kingdom. Even during the timeframe of John’s vision, he judges the Beast in dramatic fashion.

Sixth Vial

The symbolism of the sixth vial (Rev. 16:12–16) requires knowledge of Israel’s ancient history. Assyrian and Babylonian kings had come from the Euphrates centuries before John wrote Revelation. These “kings of the east” (Rev. 16:12) had overthrown Israel.

In Revelation, the Roman armies encamp there,¹¹ ready to invade the land. John seems to conflate these instruments of judgment. That the Roman armies had Oriental auxiliaries deepens the conflation. The Roman forces would do what the eastern kings had done centuries earlier.

Irony may also play a part here. Titus, the Roman general, reinforced his Euphrates-based armies after returning from Egypt. He will now besiege Jerusalem, spiritual Egypt (Rev. 11:8) of Revelation.

Philip Carrington makes helpful observations about the place of the judgment-battle.

The name Armageddon is significant because it is at Megiddo that the Jewish King Josiah was defeated and killed by an Egyptian army under Pharaoh. . . . Armageddon means Mountain of Megiddo; but Megiddo is a valley. It is the Mountain of Sion which has become Mountain of Megiddo or Mountain of defeat.¹²

This accords with Scripture: Pharaoh defeated Josiah “in the valley of Megiddo” (2 Ch 35:22; emphasis added).

This shows Armageddon is a symbolic name. John says the name comes from the Hebrew. Yet, “no such term appears elsewhere in Hebrew, and there is no mountain known to ancient or modern geographers by that name.”¹³ Armageddon represents an important location, but it would not appear on an ancient map.

To see how this symbolism works, we remember that Megiddo had been a place of important battles in Israel’s history. Like “Waterloo” in modern times, this name came to symbolize any place of military defeat.

John envisions this place of defeat as a mountain. Inmillennialism suggests he is thinking of Mount Zion in Jerusalem. If so, this sixth vial shows the destruction of the Temple. Jerusalem and the Temple mount are about to meet their “Megiddo.”

Other features of this vial confirm this perspective. Jesus says, “Behold, I come as a thief” (Rev. 16:15). This matches his description of the Temple’s fall in the Olivet Discourse. There he warned that “the thief would come” to break up Israel’s house (Matt. 24:43). This would occur in his generation (Matt. 24:34).

Jesus says, “Blessed is he that watcheth, and keepeth his garments, lest he walk naked, and they see his shame” (Rev. 16:15). Alfred Edersheim provides background information about Temple security during Jesus’s time: “Any guard found asleep when on duty was beaten, or his garments were set on fire—a punishment, as we know, actually awarded.”¹⁴ Jesus alludes to this well-known punishment. This forms another link between the vial vision and the Temple.

These historical facts establish the location of the action in this vision. It occurs in Jerusalem and on the Temple Mount.

Seventh Vial

This vision culminates when the seventh angel pours his vial on the land (Rev. 16:17–21). The “great city” ( i.e., Jerusalem) breaks apart, islands flee, and mountains disappear. This is the language of cosmic collapse. Jesus linked it to the final stages of the “great tribulation” (e.g., Matt. 24:29).

Another fascinating detail links this vision to the Roman siege of Jerusalem in the first century. John says, “And there fell upon men a great hail out of heaven, every stone about the weight of a talent” (Rev. 16:21). Josephus once more gives the “kernel” of literal truth behind this imagery when he describes the Roman catapults used against Jerusalem.

Now, the stones that were cast were of the weight of a talent, and were carried two furlongs and farther. The blow they gave was no way to be sustained, not only by those that stood first in the way, but by those that were beyond them for a great space.¹⁵

As far as we know, Josephus was not a Christian nor had he read Revelation. He had no way of knowing his description of the hurled stones would match John’s vision of “great hail.”

When this “hail” stops falling, Jerusalem’s judgment is over. Jesus says, “It is done” (Rev. 16:17).

Conclusion

The fifth vision ends as did the three preceding visions: with God’s judgment of apostate Israel. Seven seals revealed it; seven trumpets announced it; seven figures dramatized it. Now, seven vials apply it. “Egypt’s” judgment is complete.

This finishes the transition: the Messianic Age has replaced the Mosaic. Christ has destroyed Jerusalem on earth and established Jerusalem above. He has led the Israel of God in the true Exodus; we are free (Gal. 6:16; 4:3–11, 21–31). The Lord raised the Temple made without hands to replace the one he destroyed in AD 70 (John 2:19; Mark 15:29). His parousia (presence) is now the reality in which we live (Gk. Matt. 24:3, 27, 37, 39). It will last until he destroys the last enemy, death, in the resurrection (1 Cor. 15:23–26).SaveSave

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1. For our outline of Revelation, see Mapping God’s Highway In Revelation.
2. The digital file (here) is in the public domain (PD-1923).
3. David Chilton, The Days of Vengeance: An Exposition of the Book of Revelation, (Tyler, TX: Dominion Press, 1987), 396.
4. See Land or Earth.
5. John Gill, An Exposition of the Old and New Testaments, The Baptist Commentary Series (Paris, AR: The Baptist Standard Bearer, 1989), 7:294. Emphasis added.
6. See Trumpets Of Tribulation — Part 2.
7. See Trumpets Of Tribulation — Part 1.
8. Flavius Josephus, The Wars of the Jews, (Grand Rapids, MI: Baker, 1974), 3.7.1.
9. Josephus, The Wars of the Jews, 3.4.1, 4.8.3, 4.9.7, 5.6.2, and 6.1.1. Daniel Morais provided this list here. Our appreciative use is not an endorsement of the site from which they are taken.
10. Chilton, The Days of Vengeance, 405–06. Chilton provides citations from Tacitus to support Farrar’s statements.
11. As we saw in Trumpets Of Tribulation — Part 3.
12. Philip Carrington, The Meaning of the Revelation, (Eugene, OR: Wipf & Stock Pub, 2008), 265. Emphasis added.
13. Paul J. Achtemeier, Harper’s Bible Dictionary (San Francisco: Harper & Row, 1985), 64.
14. Alfred Edersheim, The Temple: Its Ministry and Services as They Were At the Time of Jesus Christ, (Grand Rapids, MI: Eerdmans, 1975), 148. Chilton’s footnote to a quote from Carrington pointed me to this passage. See Chilton, The Days of Vengeance, 410n25.
15. Josephus, The Wars of the Jews, 5.6.3.