College Press Bible Study Textbook Series
Revelation 19:17-21
Strauss-' Comments
SECTION 64
Text Revelation 19:17-21
17 And I saw an angel standing in the sun; and he cried with a loud voice, saying to all the birds that fly in mid heaven, Come and be gathered together unto the great supper of God; 18 that ye may eat the flesh of kings, and the flesh of captains, and the flesh of mighty men, and the flesh of horses and of them that sit thereon, and the flesh of all men, both free and bond, and small and great.
19 And I saw the beast, and the kings of the earth, and their armies, gathered together to make war against him that sat upon the horse, and against his army. 20 And the beast was taken, and with him the false prophet that wrought the signs in his sight, wherewith he deceived them that had received the mark of the beast and them that worshipped his image: they two were cast alive into the lake of fire that burneth with brimstone 21 and the rest were killed with the sword of him that sat upon the horse, even the sword which came forth out of his mouth: and all the birds were filled with their flesh.
Initial Questions Revelation 19:17-21
1.
Discuss the imagery of the angel standing in the sun - Revelation 19:17. Note the glory of the angel which would be necessary in order to identify the angel standing in the midst of the suns radiant brilliance.
2.
Why does the angel call all of the scavenger birds to the great supper - Revelation 19:17.
3.
Discuss the various categories and statutes of the men mentioned in Revelation 19:18.
4.
Discuss the relevance of the imagery of war in Revelation 19:19 in view of contemporary man's fear of the war to end man. (Optimistic men have spoken of past war as wars to end war, now pessimistic man is speaking of the war to end man).
5.
What did God do to the beast and the false prophet - Revelation 19:20?
6.
Why did John use such sickening imagery to describe the horrors of God's judgment upon the unrighteous - Revelation 19:21?
Overthrow and End of the Beast and the False Prophet
Chapter Revelation 19:17-21
One angel standing in the sun----cried to all the birds flying in mid-heaven, come, assemble to the great supper of God,----Birds were omens of evil and destruction in the biblical world. These flying scavengers were looking for food. They were to find it in heaps of slain men.
All classes of men have fallen in the destruction of the great city. None escaped! The strongest men were not strong enough; the wealthiest were not rich enough to purchase their own safety. Kings and councilmen were powerless before the great god Thanatos. The scavenger birds knew nothing of their wealth or power, or prestige; all human flesh tasted the same to them. How humiliating to arrogant man! (See Ezekiel 39:17-20.)
John's vision included the beast, kings, and their armies. They had marshalled these armies to wage a final war with the rider of the white horse. This will not be a local battle, but cosmic conflict. We encounter John's message of confident triumph.
All of the enemies of Christ receive God's just, righteous, and eternal punishment. The beast and the false prophet were cast alive (zontes - literally living - into burning lake of fire with sulphur.
The sharp sword which proceeds from the mouth of the rider of the white horse slays the rest. The hideous imagery reveals the extent of God's judgment. Note that God employs only the spiritual weapon of His word in this conflict. He has declared that all men will be judged according to His Word. The judgment which we receive will be according to our works.
Discussion Questions
Chapter Revelation 19:1-21
1.
What Psalms make up The Great Hallel - Revelation 19:1?
2.
What are the reasons for praising God mentioned in Revelation 19:2?
3.
Is anyone exempted from the command to praise God in Revelation 19:5?
4.
Where in the O.T. is God spoken of as the Bridegroom? Where in the Gospel records is Christ called the Bridegroom? Where in the N.T. is the imagery of the Bridegroom applied to Christ - Revelation 19:7?
5.
Where are three metaphors of a woman used in The Revelation - Revelation 19:7? Discuss them.
6.
With what has the bride of Christ been clothed in according to Revelation 19:8?
7.
Where in the Gospel records does Jesus speak a parable based on the imagery of the marriage supper - Revelation 19:9?
8.
Why was John rebuked in Revelation 19:10?
9.
What is the O.T. source of the imagery used in Revelation 19:11?
10.
What is the name of the rider in Revelation 19:13?
11.
What did the imagery of the birds signify in Revelation 19:17?
12.
Are all of Christ's enemies finally overcome according to Revelation 19:20-21?
Special Study
Handel's Messiah
(This is just a part of an article that appeared in the June 22, 1963 Christian Standard by J. D. Strauss)
The language of human praise, so much enriched by the musical works of George Frederick Handel - especially in such passages as The Hallelujah Chorus from The Messiah - may find an occasional word of thanks for the evidently providential-' circumstances that gave the great writer's music to the world.
Redemption in Prophecy and Praise
George F. Handel's was the first artistic effort to portray the gospel in great music.
Often people think that The Messiah is composed of scenes from the Gospel records, but this is only partly true. Its central theme is the fulfillment of redemption through the Redeemer-Messiah. Contemporary authors have much to say about the use of drama in religious education - in The Messiah we have the great precursor to these efforts.
The Messiah has many intricate parts, but it can be nearly divided into three broad sections: (1) The prophecy and realization of God's will and purpose through the coming of the Messiah; (2) The accomplishment of redemption by the sacrifice of Jesus Christ, and hence the rejection and utter defeat of mankind when it opposes the living God; (3) Hymn of thanksgiving for the final overthrow of death.
The Messiah was performed first in London, England, but it had to overcome many adversaries before the public finally heard the dramatic truths of the Christian gospel set to music. The Messiah was forbidden production under that name. The critics claimed that it would be sacrilegious!
The entire first part of Handel's work is a majestic echo of the great prophetic pronouncements concerning the Messiah of God. The vivid, picturesque portrayal of mankind anxiously waiting in hope of God's redemption is a musical and linguistic marvel. As though led by the Spirit, Handel chose the highest phrases uttered by the prophets to declare that the prophetic hope was realized in the coming of the Messiah.
Isaiah, Joel, Malachi, Daniel, et al., had given grave warning and powerful promises, that if all mankind were to assemble against Jehovah their efforts would be futile. Men shall be utterly defeated when they strive against God or seek to salve their conscience by pious neutrality.
Now, in an age when human genius is seen in feats such as hurling massive steel structures through space on a split-second schedule, men need again the reminders that redemption still depends on God's Messiah.
The third section of The Messiah is the hymn of thanksgiving for the final overthrow of death. This Christian belief stands in radical contrast with the contemporary ideology which strives to face death without the God of the Christian hope.
Throughout the whole of Handel's work two themes predominate - suffering and the work of redemption. The latter theme is merged into the triumphal hymn of the last two choruses.
The brilliant Hallelujah Chorus (the Hebrew word hallelujah means praise Jehovah) is grounded in the finished work of Christthe death, burial, resurrection, and ascension. The experience of listening to a competent rendering of The Messiah is abundant proof that the gospel can be expressed in more than the usual, verbal form. The tradition by which audiences rise to their feet at hearing this chorus is singularly appropriate.
The Messiah was written in about three weeks. If it were the only work Handel ever produced he would merit the endearing words of his fellow musicians. Beethoven declared, Handel is the greatest composer who ever lived. Franz Liszt said that the genius of Handel is as great as the world itself.
In light of the fact that more advancement has been made in the physical sciences during the past forth years of civilization than in the preceding four hundred years, it is to be noted that little or no great Christian music has been produced in our day. We pray God that the great Christian themes of redemption may kindle once more the creative fires, one that our Lord may be magnified by one of many great channels of expressing the work of God in Christ - music!
George F. Handel died April 14, 1759, appreciated by England as no composer had been before or after. Our concern is that men shall know The Messiah, not as a work of art composed, but rather as the Redeemer of the souls of men. Then shall the whole body of Christianity sing the new songHallelujahpraise Jehovah!for He has touched fallen man with eternal healing in Christ.
Special Study
Some Contemporary Attitudes Toward the Biblical Doctrine of the Word of God
I recently heard a lecture by J. V. Langmead Casserley in which he raised the four fundamental problems in the contemporary analytic attack on the possibility of a rational religious discourse (since Kant, Hume, the Vienna Circle, Wittgenstein, Austin, Ayer, and all the creative spirits in contemporary Logic of Science). The four questions were(1) What is Revelation?; (2) Is God knowable?; (3) What is the relation of the knowledge of God to knowledge in the sciences and other academic disciplines?; (4) Does religious language express truth? This line of thought has had many progenitors and many set backs but it is now the predominate Anglo-Saxon Philosophical position. In order to better appreciate the issues involved, let us provide a brief historical perspective.
Nathan Söderblom took the initial steps in his Gifford Lectures, The Living God which blazed the trail for those who thought that propositional-revelation had become an untenable thesis. He laid the ground work for the contemporary attitude that extra-biblical revelation exists and continues to this hour. Söderblom did this by developing Justin Martyr's logos spermatikos idea. William Temple, in his Nature, Man, and God, developes the lethal distinction between Revelation and the proposition which speaks of revelation. Martin Buber's emphatic epistemology is utilized by practically every protestant theologian who has written on the subject of revelation. John Baillie, Emil Brunner, et al., recognize their debt to the Jewish Existentialist - Buber. Dr. Austin Farrer declares in his The Glass of Vision - We now recognize that the propositions on the Scriptural page expresses the response of human witnesses to divine events, not a miraculous divine dictation. (p. 36f).
The profound and prodigious efforts of Barth, Tillich, Berdyaev, et al., are efforts to work out a theory of revelation, once propositional revelation is repudiated in the name of scientific logic and the supposed demonstrations by way of a scientific study, that the Bible is a fallible record of human response to the original revelation which came in the person of Christ, and is therefore personal encounter of subject to subject, and not propositional information about God. But the revelation is God himself, not information about Him mediated through the words and sentences of a bookthe Bible (which provides true affirmation about the will and purpose of God in Christ). God is therefore not available to discursive reason! This contemporary attitude would not be too difficult to handle, if it were not for the persistent assertions by contemporary theologians, that this is the biblical view of revelation.[1]
[1] Martin Buber's Emphatic Epistemology has revolutionized contemporary Protestant Theology, which is not built upon propositional revelation but rather upon an uncognitive ineffable person to person encounter. The thesis maintains that we know persons differently than we know things. Buber's classic statement if found in his I-Thou and Two Types of Faith (Jewish and Greek).
We hear and read much of the thesis that God reveals Himself in acts and events and not by words and propositions.
We must pass by any discussion of the Hebrew and Greek vocabulary for truth, knowledge, faith (e.g., or as in the case of the Hebrew çmuna which means truth, faith, and trust). Martin Buber's Two Types of Faith tries to show that the Old Testament understanding of Faith was trust and that the New Testament presents a Christianized Greek-view. The most serious flaw in Buber's thesis is that it is not correct, either for the Hebrew or New Testament views. The biblical view does entail trust, but trust based on evidence which is the ground of the faith and not merely an irrational trust. Under this circumstance, there would be no justification for trusting in God any more than in man or some non-Christian religious object, etc.
Any adequate analysis of the biblical doctrine of revelation would necessitate that we understand the nature of Language (Linguistics and Semantics) and its relationship to thought and reality, if there is to be any extensive impact made on our generation on behalf of Christ. The very best Evangelical Literature (Henry, Carnell, Ramm, et al.) is seriously deficient in light of the problems raised by rejection of the total Christian perspective, which alone makes sense of The Restoration Movement and The Plea to restore biblical Christianity. Many misunderstand the relationship of words and propositions to the content of revelation. Even well meaning N.T. Christians and others of Evangelical persuasions believe that this line of reasoning makes the Bible and not Jesus, etc., the revelation of God. We cannot state too often that all we know of Christ and the will and purpose of God for time and eternity depends on the nature of the record which bears witness to Him. The New Testament does declare that Jesus is the final revelation, but we would not have access to this information unless spirit filled men also inscribed the Word of God. The biblical doctrine of the Word of God is not exhausted in the Incarnation of the Living Word! The biblical doctrine of the Word entails the Word Incarnate, the Word Inscribed, and the Word Proclaimed, and only if we possess a propositional revelation can we correlate this trichotomy.[2]
[2] Barth makes these distinctions, but cannot correlate them, because he will not permit the Bible to have the status of propositional revelation - see his Dogmatics and for beginners, G. C. Berkouwer'S, The Triumph of Grace in the Theology of Karl Barth, Eerdmans, 1956. Now in paperback.
There are several Hebrew terms which are translated word in our English Bibles, but the primary term is Dabar means matter or affair in the sense of the thing about which one speaks. It is not true that Hebrew thought subordinates words to events. The reverse is more nearly true, particularly in the case of the Word of the Lord, for his Word determines all events, and no Word of God is void of power. Cf. Genesis 18:14; Jeremiah 32:17-27, in Hebrew and Septuagint with Luke 1:37. The use of rhemata in Luke and Acts furnishes interesting examples of the colorlessness of translating things where sayings is required by the contextual reference to the spoken word. See Luke 1:65; Luke 2:17-19; Luke 2:50-51; Acts 5:32; Acts 13:42.[3]
[3] Edmund P. Clowney, Preaching and Biblical Theology; Eerdmans Publishing Company: Grand Rapids, Michigan; 1961, p. 26
The Word
Jesus is the Logos of God in the New Testament Scriptures. The same effort to manipulate the records into saying that Jesus is the revelatory word and the New Testament scriptures are merely fallible-human reports about the original revelation. We must not lose sight of the fact that all we really know of Jesus Christ is contained in the biblical records. Many are still searching for the historical Christ. But he has never been lost by those of us who accept the Bible as the Word of God. If we possess only a fallible human response to original revelation which did not come in propositional form, then we have no authoritative message from God. If we have no authoritative message, then the Restoration Plea is absurd, and we are of all men most miserable.
The modern theologian speaks quite extensively of communicating the gospel, but he must first have something to convey. The church of the first century had the Word. The Word was made flesh (John 1:1-18) is the one force which can stabilize the souls of men. A vast amount has been written about the term word in philosophical literature. A thorough examination would find us comparing its use of Heraclitus, the Stoics, and Philo Judaeus, with the application we find made only by John. We are not concerned with its repeated use, but with the implications of its meaning as it is used by these various authors.
The term has significantly different connotations in Hebrew and Greek and Latin. This should make it plain that there is no single term adequate for an English translation. The Greek word logos contains two elementsspeech and reason. The vocal utterance plus the thought content of the utterance is synthesized into the term logos. As the term is used in the New Testament, it does not imply one or the other, but both. The Word made flesh is unique in context.
The Latin Christians debated over the use of three words in translating this one Greek term. They were verbum, sermo, or ratio; but when the Latins selected verbum, they deprived logos of half of its implications.
Philo did use the term in both senses. And he maintained this conception as he linked it with The Word of the Lord of the Old Testament, but the stoic implication was also present. The distinctive features of John's use imply eternal, personal, divine, and transcendent existence. John's phraseology is not found in the other gospel records. (Hebrews 4:13 where in his sight (autou - his) identified the Word of Revelation 19:12 as personal.)
It is this Word that we must communicate by proclamation and dedicated lives. It must go forth in the power of the Spirit with no uncertain sound.
But thanks be to God we need not succumb to the contemporary mind nor its satanic attacks upon the Scriptures. There are no easy answers to the most serious threats to biblical Christianity in the history of the Church, but we pray that many will take up the challenge and labor in the highly technical and specialized areas of contemporary science, philosophy, and theology so that our message can be placed on the offensive instead of the defensive. The coming generation to whom many of us will preach Christ and Him Crucified must be challenged at the academic level where the contemporary mind and its animosity to Biblical Christianity is being forged. I pray God that we rally to the challenge - now beginning with you!
Some of the above points were delineated in the author's 1962 Missouri Christian Lectureship on the Origin and Development of the Contemporary Mind and Its Significance for Biblical Christianity.
See the present author's very superficial treatment of the problem of Revelation in the Popular presentationWhat is Revelation, parts 1 and 2, The Christian Standard, April 22 and 29, 1961; and the keen insights which are evident in the article by H. Daniel Friberg, The Bible and Propositional Truth, Christianity Today, July 5, 1963. His remarks are even more appropriate in view of the various theories of the Proposition and how they differ from the types of sentences which are under scrutiny in contemporary Logic. The following works will also be of great benefit to the serious student of this problem.
G. H. Clark, Religion, Reason, and Revelation; Presbyterian Reformed Publishing Company, Nutley, New Jersey,
G. H. Clark, Karl Barth's Theological Method; Presbyterian Reformed Publishing Company, Nutley, New Jersey, 1963.
H. D. MacDonald - Ideas of Revelation: A Historical Study, A.D. 1700 - to A.D. 1860, MacMillan Pub. Co., New York.
Note: Problem of Education and Evangelism!
We are not winning the world! The attitude outlines above is not merely an academic affair; it is an attitude which is rapidly permeating the mind of mass-man.
The kind of preparation we provide in our Bible Colleges should be determined by the mind of the age in which it lives. All Bible and nothing else - precludes winning the world!
Is it possible that we are preparing a ministry for a past generation? How shall we defend our Faith in view of the comprehensive, satanic attack on biblical revelation? The areas which call for immediate attention by all concerned N.T. Christians are: 1. A Philosophy of Language which sustains the theistic view of language which is necessary for a defense of propositional revelation. The dominate thrust in the rapidly developing field of Linguistic is naturalistic. If this view of the nature and origin of Language is correct a special revelation from God to man is impossible (we need a thorough understanding of Semantics - problem of meaning); 2. A Christian View of History (A Christian Theology of History) which understands and answers all species of naturalistic, humanistic views of history, the articulation of a Christian-theistic view of a historical fact, historical causation, problem of verifying or falsifying any given assertion about historical reality; 3. Philosophy of science (concepts of cause, explanation, fact, etc.) Courses in these three areas should replace the traditional apologetic materials still being taught in our Bible Colleges. The traditional courses are powerless before the contemporary mind, and do not prepare the student to defend the faith against the barrage of attacks, verbal and inscribed, coming from the pens of the contemporary critics of biblical Christianity, and its claim to a special revelation.