had been constantly accusing before God, for their inconsistencies or falsity, in order to distract, trouble, and hinder their assurance with God, or their testimony for God. By this turning of Satan out of the heavenly places of power, this conflict and accusation ceased; the heavens were cleared, that they might now declare His righteousness.
The actual catching up of the saints is not here mentioned, because the Church should always expect it; and because the agents and their public acts being here in question, the Church (one with Christ before the Father, the mystery hidden from ages and known only by the Spirit) is not, as we have seen all through, the subject;[1] but the acts, as they affect the brethren, looked at in their condition here below, are noticed, because they are to reign with Christ whose power was now come.
The Church united to Christ and interested in him as her advocate and priest, and all those associated with the heavens, were now free. The
- ↑ It is looked at corporately, only as in heaven, as we have often seen from the end of chapter iii. The accuser of our brethren, therefore, is spoken of; for the voice from heaven could not speak of suffering or accusation of saints there, but of those who had been liable to it on earth. On the supposition noticed above, these would be the class of sufferers still to be gathered as slain in the last testimony, or who would not worship the beast.
