Trumpets of Tribulation — Part 6

If I were John Bunyan, author of the famous Pilgrim’s Progress, I might write an allegory about Mr. Inmillennialist traveling through the book of Revelation with four companions, Misters Premillennialist, Dispensationalist, Postmillennialist, and Amillennialist. At the end of the third vision, they would say to him,

The first six trumpets do not describe the Jewish wars of AD 66–70. We hear “loud voices in heaven, saying, ‘The kingdoms of this world have become the kingdoms of our Lord and of His Christ, and He shall reign forever and ever!’”¹ Mr. I., you are wrong when you say this vision refers to the destruction of the Temple in Jesus’s generation. The kingdoms belong to Christ after the seventh trumpet sounds and this was not true in AD 70! Therefore, John must be describing something else, either the start of the eternal state or the millennium when Christ will reign on earth from the third Temple.

They would then quibble among themselves about which of those two options is correct.² Their mutual opposition to Mr. I. could hold them together only long enough to dispatch him.

Since I do not possess the Bedford Tinker’s³ literary gifts, my explanation of this passage will use unadorned prose. After reading it, perhaps the reader can create an imaginative response with which Mr. I. could explain how this message from heaven fits his position.

Trumpets, Shouts, and Conquest

Here is John’s sequence: seven trumpets, shouts, and then the transfer of the kingdoms to Christ. This may seem familiar. A similar progression occurred just after Israel⁴ began their conquest of the Promised Land. When Joshua led them against Jericho, trumpets sounded for seven consecutive days. On the seventh day, an observer would have heard the seventh trumpet followed by “great voices.” Then, he would have seen the walls of Jericho fall (Josh. 6:1–16). God had already given the entire land to Israel (Deut. 28:52–53). Now, Jericho was under their rule.

In Revelation, the seven trumpets sound as Israel⁵ is entering the kingdom age. Great voices in heaven announce, “The kingdoms of this world (Gk. kosmos) are become the kingdoms of our Lord, and of his Christ; and he shall reign for ever and ever” (Rev. 11:15). Just as God gave the Promised Land to Israel, he has given the kingdoms of this world to Christ.⁶

The sequence is the same in both cases. And, God’s people must fight to achieve the promised result in both situations. In the Mosaic Age, the battle was with carnal weapons. Now, the saints possess the nations in Christ’s name through spiritual warfare, using spiritual weapons (2 Cor. 10:3–6; Eph. 6:10–17).

The subjugation of the kingdoms of this world to Christ and his people is a fundamental characteristic of the Messianic Age.⁷ Satan possessed them during the Mosaic Age, but Jesus has bound him to take his possessions (Matt. 12:29; cp. Rev. 20:1–3). The kingdoms once ruled by Satan will become Christ’s domain during his reign.

But what about the past tense that bothered Mr. I.’s companions—“The kingdoms of this world have become the kingdoms of our Lord” (Rev. 11:15, NKJV; emphasis added)?

Our plain explanation is that this is common prophetic language. The prophets sometimes describe the result of a historical period as if it has already arrived. They speak as if everything between the beginning and the end has already happened. For example, Isaiah said, “Jerusalem is ruined, and Judah is fallen”⁸ (Isa. 3:8) two hundred years before Babylon destroyed them. He also proclaimed, “The people that walked in darkness have seen a great light: they that dwell in the land of the shadow of death, upon them hath the light shined” (Isa. 9:2). He said this seven hundred years before “The Light of the World” appeared in Bethlehem.⁹ Often, “the prophet so transports himself in imagination into the future that he describes the future event as if it had been already seen or heard by him.”¹⁰

So, Mr. Inmillennialist would say John heard voices announcing the end results of Christ’s reign. He heard and reported these results at the start of that reign. He could say some translations show this perspective two verses later when the elders in heaven proclaim, “We give thanks to you, Lord God Almighty, who is and who was, for you have taken your great power and begun to reign” (Rev. 11:17, ESV). The elders knew Jesus had just “begun to reign” and that, in the end, all the kingdoms of this world would be his (Rev. 11:15).

Inmillennialism accounts for all this. The events described by the seven trumpets were in John’s near future, at the start of the Messianic Age.¹¹ During this age, Christ will subdue all his enemies (1 Cor. 15:25–26). The kingdoms of this world will become “the kingdoms of our Lord and of his Christ” as God fulfills his promises to the Son (Psa. 2:7–9; Psa. 110:1–2; et al.).

John’s vision declares the victorious conclusion of the Messianic Age at its beginning. Inmillennialism reflects this optimistic viewpoint.

The Witness of the 24 Elders

As we saw in our last post (here), God’s two witnesses—which we identified as Mosaic Age Israel and Messianic Age Israel—ascended into heaven during the interlude between the sixth and seventh trumpets. We now suggest John’s vision of the twenty-four elders may confirm this interpretation. If so, twelve of the elders may represent Mosaic-Age Israel and the other twelve Messianic-Age Israel. These two witnesses now sit in one council around the throne of God.

The Final Judgment

John’s account of the end of the Messianic Age also describes the final judgment. God will judge the dead, reward his servants, and destroy his enemies (Rev. 11:18). Inmillennialism takes this to be the same judgment Jesus’ described at the end of the Olivet Discourse (Matt. 25:31–46). Please see our post The Sheep and the Goats Judgment for an explanation of that prophecy.

An Open Temple

John ends his account of the seven trumpets by saying, “And the temple of God was opened in heaven, and there was seen in his temple the ark of his testament: and there were lightnings, and voices, and thunderings, and an earthquake, and great hail” (Rev. 11:19).

This statement stands distinct from the sayings of the “great voices” (Rev. 11:15) and “the four and twenty elders” (Rev. 11:16–18). The distinction is sharp enough to make commentators consider verse 19 as the start of the next vision.¹² We believe, however, that it makes a fitting conclusion to the trumpet vision as we saw in our last post (here). In the trumpet vision, John measures the Temple in earthly Jerusalem for destruction. Its “replacement,” the Temple in the heavenly Jerusalem, is open throughout the Messianic Age. See Gal. 4:21–31 for a relevant and God-inspired allegory beyond anything even Bunyan could dream.

Conclusion

“The blowing of the seventh trumpet reveals that the Great Tribulation is over and the reign of Christ has begun.”¹³ It will end in glory. This summary provides Mr. Inmillennialist with an adequate answer for his friends, even though it does not wear Bunyan’s allegorical garb.

Below, I summarize how inmillennialism accounts for the images in John’s trumpet vision:

The apostle has provided a segue into his “seven mystic¹⁵ figures” vision by introducing one of them in the trumpet vision. The Beast kills the two witnesses in Jerusalem between the sixth and seventh trumpets. We will learn more about his role in future posts (D. V.).

We do not need the gifts of a Bunyan to appreciate the subtle skill with which the Apostle John—enabled by the Holy Spirit—leads us through Revelation, even if we travelers are sometimes confused by the sights and sounds.SaveSave

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1. Rev. 11:15, NKJV; emphasis added. The digital file for the above image (here) is in the public domain (PD-1923).
2. For an idea of what they might say, see our Comparison of Prophetic Models post and the links it contains.
3. A nickname for Bunyan derived from his hometown and trade. See here.
4. As defined in the Mosaic Age.
5. As defined in the Messianic Age.
6. For the typology in play here, please see our post Typology and Inmillennialism.
7. For support of this statement, see He Must Reign, Hooray For Big Government!, and especially First Corinthians 15 and Inmillennialism, or click on the tag “optimism” below. Also, read 1 Cor. 15:25–26 in light of Dan. 2, 7, and 9.
8. These are Hebrew perfect tense verbs.
9. This is not the problematic “prophetic perspective” we rejected in First Corinthians 15 and Inmillennialism. That device errs by declaring that the prophets were unaware of events intervening between the beginning and end of their visions. In our case, Isaiah and John knew of those events and wrote at length about them.
10. Friedrich Wilhelm Gesenius, Gesenius’ Hebrew Grammar, ed. E. Kautzsch and Sir Arthur Ernest Cowley, 2d English ed. (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1910), 312–13. And, “the eschatological events are all described through aorist verbs and infinitives as though they were events of the past, and all of these events taken together make it clear that God has begun his reign.” —David E. Aune, Revelation 6–16, Vol. 52B, Word Biblical Commentary (Dallas: Word, 1998), 637.
11. See The Bookends of Revelation.
12. For example, Aune, Revelation 6–16, 647.
13. William MacDonald and Arthur Farstad, Believer’s Bible Commentary: Old and New Testaments, (Nashville: Thomas Nelson, 1997), 2368.
14. For our analysis of these events, see our posts: Trumpets of Tribulation, Part 4 and Part 5.
15. Meaning “symbolic,” not “occult.”