Notes on the book of Revelations/Chapter 14

by John Nelson Darby

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The term “Mount Zion” does not positively take us out of heaven: still it is a modification of what was before seen. It is not the Lord returned in judgment—then he is the Son of Man; and here we have, subsequent to this, the patience of the saints under the prevailing power of the beast and his image, and afterwards “blessed are the dead,” and the Son of Man reaping the harvest of the earth. Moreover, we have a new song^[1] sung before the throne, and before the elders, which song none but the “hundred and forty and four thousand” could learn; so that we are not dissociated from heavenly places, for this throne was set in heaven. Yet Zion was not the place of the temple, but the place of royalty: but first of grace,—the place of God’s connection, in grace, with the earth before the temple was built—where David had prepared a place for the ark—contrasted with Sinai, the place of law to the earth. Whence, too, the law was to go forth in grace from the city of the great King,—that “Zion that bringeth glad tidings.”

Here, then, anticipatively of the time when the Lord God and the Lamb should be the temple of the heavenly Jerusalem—when withal on earth Solomon’s glory should be all displayed—stood a Lamb maintaining still this character, not yet appearing in that of Son of man, but now drawing towards His royalty, towards the earth, yet associated with his suffering people still, and with the perfect number of the remnant, having His Father’s name on their forehead, the manifestation of the character plain upon them in grace as children. Their great characteristic was having kept themselves pure. The dwellers upon earth, we read afterwards, had been made drunk with the poison of Babylon’s fornication, but these had kept themselves pure though Babylon was not yet fallen. They were redeemed from among men from the earth—a peculiar people in the power of their lives, in the midst of those professors, while Babylon stood—not the reign of Christ in blessing, not the wide-spread promulgation of the Gospel, but in purity as an undefiled few, following the Lamb, the holy sufferer.

Though the world might have slighted them, as an unknown people, yet the full perfect remnant of them was here found assembled. And as Zion, as we have said, was the place where the ark was, before the temple was built, and the temple was the type of the established glory, so here we find them assembled on Mount Zion; yet we are still in the heavenly places; for the new song is sung before the throne and before the elders. The harvest and dealings of the Son of Man are subsequent to this and the fall of Babylon. These are redeemed from the earth, while the earth^[2] went on, i.e. the earth, as described in the two preceding chapters, to be first fruits to God and the Lamb.^[3]

We meet with this connection for the first time formally expressed: it seems to me connected with fidelity during corruption, during which the mediatorial work of Christ was confounded, corrupted, or denied, as the mediatorial glory is described by the terms “Throne of God and the Lamb,” “The Lord God Almighty and the Lamb are the temple of it,” &c. So, in the true Bride, contrasted with the great Whore that did corrupt the earth with her fornication, we have the elect or heavenly Church (which is spoken of, therefore, as coming down from heaven), contrasted with that earthly system which connects itself with the kings of the earth. It is the Lord God that judges her. The kings of the earth have their war with the Lamb. “Firstfruits to God and the Lamb,” seem to imply separation from the evil of the one, and suffering, in faithfulness to the Lamb, from the unbelief of the other. They follow the Lamb wherever he goes, and are without fault before the throne of God. It is not properly the Father’s^[4] house they are received into, as identified with Himself—as hidden in heavenly places. It was deliverance from this corruption as regards worship, that formed a prominent part of the next of the seven messages of this chapter—a public general announcement for all to hear of the Everlasting^[5] Gospel, declaring judgment on subsisting things, and calling for true worship to recognise God in the supremacy of His ministrations as the source of all things. The connection of the hour of His judgment being come and the call for true worship, supposes a Gospel preached in the midst of apostasy and corruption, before the judgment, I believe the principle of this began at the Reformation (though it was by no means the accomplishment of it), and that it will not be fulfilled till the testimony to all—even the heathen nations—for a witness, be fulfilled. The striking feature is the announcement of the hour of God’s judgment^[6] being come. The next messenger announces the fall of Babylon: the particulars of this are more fully given us further on; but getting its place in the course of events is of great moment, which is given us here. The beast and his image still continue, but things are now closing in; for the warning is next given, that if any man worship him he shall be made to drink of the wine of the wrath of God, which is poured out without mixture into the cup of his indignation. This, therefore, is the point of patience and faith now for the saints, keeping entirely aloof from all connection with the beast; for as yet it was a prevailing though judged power.

But now the patience of the saints (who suffered even to death at least) closed. They were the happy ones—they rested from their labours, and their works followed them.

On the announcement of judgment on those that worshipped the beast or his image, or received his mark, and of the trial being the point of the saints’ patience, a voice was heard from heaven; not the next progressive providential annouticement (for it was no part of Providence or dealings below), but the heavenly declaration of the decreed state of the saints, to whom this place was now publicly assigned in the economy of God: Death of the saints was now quite done with; and the blessedness of those of whom this was the portion was brought to light; not yet by their public manifestation on earth (at least this is not spoken of), but by the announcement from heaven to the ear of faith, that the time was come—a blessedness to which the Spirit, who had been their secret strength, in labour, and even to death, now, with the same understanding and sympathy in joy, adds its “Yea.” This introduction of the Spirit is very beautiful in this connection. When the earth was coming into blessing, they could not be left out in the testimony of Him who had suffered with them. On the introduction of grace to the earth (“the Lamb on Mount Zion”), it will be seen that all this chapter relates to the earth; but then, by the voice from heaven, the portion of the saints is thereon given. Their portion is given, too, as in the reward of glory, at least in announcement;—“Their works do follow them.” This refers to manifestation in glory. Compare 2 Thess. i.^[7]

Any thing the beast does after this, is not mentioned here; it is the account of God’s dealings as towards the earth; the condition of the saints having been stated in passing. The next step is, therefore, the “harvest of the earth”—the execution of separating judgment in it; which was the actual accomplishment of the announcement of the previous verse—at least as regards its consequences in earth.

Then comes the vintage which is pure wrath, not discriminating judgment. All the grapes of that which had the form of His people upon earth, are trampled in the wine-press of God’s wrath. This was done “without the city,” not yet mentioned since chap. xi; and there, notice, it was “men” were slain;—here, it is “blood came out:” the destruction is dreadful.^[8]

This passes then from redemption out of the really apostate earth, when redemption from amid profession was necessary, to the dealing of God, first in testimony, and then in judgment, with evil in all its forms as to men, the beast being reserved in judgment for a fuller description. This was rather the judgment of men and their corruption under those circumstances, the Lamb’s open war and victory being another thing. This is God’s judgment of the state of things; not the Lamb’s war with hostile power.

We have here then a general prospective view of God’s dealings with the subject—apostasy; for subject it is to Him: first, saving His saints out of it, preserving them pure—then testimony—then judgment.

1. This is a very important epoch: in ch. v. 9, they sing a new song. There was a new subject of praise when the Lamb who was in the midst of the throne took the book, and assumed the development of what was to introduce the inheritance. The redeemed could say then, “We shall reign,” although the Lamb was still above, and the action of His power was only heavenly or providential. Here, the Lamb not having yet laid aside this character and assumed that of Son of man, and judge, and warrior, yet is associated with earth, and stands on Mount Sion; and therefore they sing a new song before the beasts and before the elders: these not themselves taking a part in it, for it was not the mystic Church’s portion, nor the great witness therefore of redemption for creation, but a special occasion of praise on the Lamb’s taking a place on Mount Zion, and associating himself, though in a special manner, with the earth.
2. The second beast had caused the earth to worship the first beast.
3. This, taken in the crisis, would seem to imply that, besides the Church, properly so called, whose place was in heaven, and, in that sense, the earth done with, there would be a remnant redeemed from the earth still connected with the Lamb; i.e. the sufferer owned by the name of His Father, and singing before the throne, and before the elders—a peculiar class, and having a song thus specially theirs. They were a firstfruits redeemed from the earth; redeemed from among men. The body of the Church, in its heavenly character, had passed out of the scene before—had nothing to do with the earth. The refusing the beast after, is for preservation in an earthly place—a preservation enforced by a warning of unmingled wrath in the presence of the holy angels, the ministers of His providence, and of the Lamb, the Sufferer, whose grace, and power, and title, they refused and rejected in the great controversy. These hundred and forty-four thousand are more circumstantially like the Lord in his earthly portion and taking up. They were not corporately looked at as the Bride of Christ, but as holding a special place as virgins: still, as contrasted with the harlotry of evil in the protracted period, the remnant peculiarly and separately preserved; in the crisis, a special remnant which we have noted.
4. This would be true of them, as in the protracted period, but it is not the characteristic mark given of them. They were, rather, a witness of the purity of the throne and the Lamb, as King of kings, and Lord of lords, for what became Him in the earth, and therefore, in the full sense, are the dawn of that bright and blessed morning of the earth from the Creator and-the Redeemer of it.
5. Everlasting I take to be distinguished from any temporary or provisional good news. Canaan was a gospel to Israel; the birth of Christ in the flesh was good news to Israel. But this is the everlasting αίώνιος—the full complete promise of the results in the Son of man, formed on the intentions and rights of God; and that as by redemption. It involved, therefore, the kingdom; though, in some cases, only the basis might be laid. Any diligent student of the Gospels will see the transition, from promises presented to the Jews in the person of Christ in the flesh, to this everlasting Gospel. Of this it is said, “Except a man be born again he cannot see the kingdom of God;” and then earthly things and heavenly are brought in.
6. When the everlasting Gospel then goes forth, it is not the bringing in a universal state of blessedness, but a call to fear God amongst wide-spread apostasy of all sorts, “for the hour of His judgment is come,” as “this Gospel of the kingdom must first be preached to all nations, and then shall the end come,” i.e. of the age; and this last, while I fully recognise what precedes as involving the principles, is the strong final sense of the passage, and therefore, as noticed in the preceding note, God is announced as a Creator, who had a right to His creatures, and presented Himself as such to men on the earth, as against all their idolatries, resuming (first in testimony) His place as God in the earth. Babylon, which had been the great corrupter of the earth, and the centre of idolatry, is next judged of God.
   There is another point connected with the pamered and forty-four thousand and the everlasting Gospel. The hundred and forty-four thousand are redeemed from the earth, where the testimony is already a redemption from the midst of prevailing evil in the limited sphere so designated: in the crisis, probably, entirely confined to the land. Before the judgment, “the end,” comes, the everlasting Gospel goes out afresh to the nations (many of them, doubtless, in actual idolatry), to announce the coming judgment, and to testify the good news of the coming millennial kingdom and blessedness. These two spheres—earth—and people and tongues and nations and languages—we have noticed as contented in repeated instances.
7. In the protracted period, this thirteenth verse would refer, I apprehend, to the announcement of that blessedness of the saints, which the harvest, looked at as in Matt. xiii., in its application to them, would accomplish: in the crisis, to their manifestation in this. This distinction is only what we actually find in the interpretation of that parable in Matthew. In the parable the tares are gathered in bundles in the field, and the wheat into the garner: in the explanation, the tares are burned in the field, and the righteous shine forth. This is precisely the difference, and only this I make here. The harvest and vintage are two acts of judgment, the harvest being of much wider scope; and, accordingly, in it there is not clear riddance of the corners of the field as to the wheat. It may distinctively clear and take the wicked, leaving those spared for earthly blessing. The vintage is pure vengeance on a specific object (the ecclesiastical body), which has its character from earth: in the crisis, I apprehend, Jewish. Its grapes are now fully ripe. This vengeance is actual earthly judgment: “blood came out of the wine-press” far and wide: it was an actual and dreadful judgment in the land. All these—all the contents of this chapter—are God’s religious warnings or dealings with the earth.
8. There may be an application of what passes in this chapter to the crisis; and, in such case, many dates would be ascertained, but the application is less particular of part. Thus the song, being before the throne of God, must be taken only as the commencing association of heavenly with earthly things, and the recognition of the earthly by the heavenly powers. The Lamb, standing on Mount Zion, would recognise the return of the Jews into suffering, associated with the Lamb amongst them in grace, that is, of a remnant among them. The everlasting Gospel would then be strictly that mentioned in Matthew, “the Gospel of the kingdom,” i.e. that Christ was just coming in his kingdom, which I have no doubt will so go out in all nations before the end. The fall of Babylon would precede the harvest of the earth, and, looked at as the literal Babylon, might be supposed to be the “tidings of the north and east,” in part, which trouble the wilful king, and cause him to return to Jerusalem. Compare Isa. xxi, xxii; and then the last time of trouble would be to the Jewish people such as never was, and Michael would stand up for them, and the sanctuary at length be cleansed. In this case, I am inclined to think, the vine of the earth would be rather the Jewish part of profession, as in Isa. lxv. lxvi. Such judgment is certain: but there will be also the apostasy to be destroyed; but that is rather in war against the royalty of Christ then, and has assumed a worse form than mere apostasy or profession. Viewed in this light, “without the city,” would, in the general application, refer to the great city of the corporate Roman empire: in the application in crisis it would, as before, be taken for Jerusalem.
   In the application in the text (p.115) of the claim of true worship, there are most important principles—the acknowledging God, not man, as the source in creative power of every blessing, or order of blessing, or power, or streams and fountains of true influence, and consequent condition of men: than which there cannot be a more important principle possible for daily use. The sense given above in the text, I believe to be the most important for the Church in the present time.
   The fall of Babylon, as a system, I should note here, does not imply its final absolute destruction: it becomes a great deal worse by it in its character.