(“These be the days of vengeance. Flee!”)—so here (the saints first removed), it is no longer a time of reception but of judgment. Separation having been made (i.e. within the range of. the beast’s influence), no one could now enter into the heavenlies: and the earthly people who had taken and received the mark of the beast were judged.
The judgment as yet, however, was not one of destruction: the heavenlies[1] and the earth were now separated; and instead of entering into the former, judgment was flowing from them on the latter; but it was not the actual judgment of the quick by the Son of man, but providential dealings of the wrath of God as such, and the wrath filled up in them.
I do not say that this is the last woe. But we have here that which was connected with it, “Thy wrath is come;” and I am disposed to think all that follows in that verse, though other things are mentioned also here.
But as the woe in the twelfth, pronounced on the descent of Satan, was on the earth and on the sea, when he was cast out of heaven, so, on the distinction
- ↑ I doubt, as to the crisis, that the heavens were yet changed—whether these signs did not belong to the old heavens.
