The voice that cried from the cross, “It is finished!”1 is the voice that now calls from the throne: “It is done!” He is seated with God on the throne.2 This converges with—and is mentioned in the same breath as—the Temple in Heaven. The ‘altar of burnt offering’3, ‘altar of burning incense’4, Temple, Throne. It is the voice of the Everlasting One, of the Father and of the Son. The seventh ’bowl’ is the last of the seven ‘bowls’, that contain the last and final ‘plagues’.5 With them the definitive verdict has been executed. John expresses himself in a ‘prophetic past tense’ once again. It still has to take place; it is on the point of taking place, but John sees it as if it is already behind him. This is how a Christian can pray too. The Lord Jesus says: “Therefore I tell you, whatever you ask for in prayer, believe that you have received it, and it will be yours.”6 Believe, although you do not yet see any evidence of your prayer coming to pass. Is that not the basic attitude of every believer, surrounded by everything that seems to contradict God’s almighty power? Is that not how a believer should behave towards the Kingship of Christ, Who has said: “All authority in Heaven and on earth has been given to Me”?7 This will certainly be the case as far as the believers in the last phase of world history are concerned—not seeing but nevertheless believing.8 The time will come when ‘faith’ will proceed into ‘sight’.9 Hebrews 1:8-9 “But now we do not yet see all things subjected to Him. But we do see Him who was made for a little while lower than the angels, namely, Jesus, because of the suffering of death crowned with Glory and Honour. “The time will come though when we shall see Him in Whom we have believed. Isaiah says: “Hear that uproar from the city, hear that noise from the Temple! It is the sound of the Lord repaying His enemies all they deserve.”10
The seventh angel pours his ‘bowl’ out in the air. The ‘air’ is the domain of the ‘powers of darkness’. Paul says of us, people in their natural, fallen, unconverted, sinful state, that we were ‘dead’ in our transgressions and sins in which we used to live when we followed the ways of this world and of the ruler of the ‘kingdom of the air’, the ‘spirit’ who is now at work in those who are disobedient. All of us also lived among them at one time, gratifying the cravings of our flesh and following its desires and thoughts. Like the rest, we were by nature deserving of wrath.11 “For we wrestle not against flesh and blood, but against ‘principalities’, against ‘powers’, against the ‘rulers of the darkness of this world’, against ‘spiritual wickedness’ in high places,” as the King James version says in Ephesians 6:12. The ‘dragon’ and his forces have been banned there for good since Revelation 12:7–12. The area under their control is ‘the air’, a spiritual realm that apparently closes off the earth from God’s Heavenly realms. Moreover, the ordinary ‘air’, the ‘air’ that we breath, the atmosphere around the earth is already full of smoke from the ‘abyss’, so that the sun and the firmament is darkened by the smoke from the ‘Abyss’.12 By pouring out the seventh ‘bowl’, the Lord pours out His wrath on that area and: “It is done, finished”. The consequences will become visible immediately. It is good to realise, however, that this marks the end of God’s wrath—but not of His judgment. “It is done” applies to the ‘dragon’, the ‘beast’, the ‘devil worshippers’—those who worship the image, the ‘false prophet’, the ‘whore of Babylon’. In short, all who bear the mark of the ‘beast’. The bill with all of them is settled radically. How? John will be shown this, and he will show it to us, in detail, in the following chapters. The fact that it is to happen is already established here, as if it were already ‘past tense’.
• It is comforting to realise that however difficult your circumstances may be, God already sees them as ‘past tense’! He is from ‘everlasting to everlasting’.13
• The Lord reigns. His Kingdom is established. His rule encompasses the course of time. He Who knows the present and surveys the future, does not let any of His words fall to earth, says an old hymn written by Hendrik Pierson. “Heaven and earth will pass away, but not My words,” says the Lord Jesus.14
Bible References:
1.John 19:30 2.Revelation 3:21, 5:6–7; Marc 12:36; Acts 7:55–56; Romans 7:55–56; Colossians 3:1; Hebrews 1:3, 10:12 3.Revelation 6:9–10 4.Revelation 8:3–5, 9–13 5.Revelation 15:1 6.Mark 11:24 NIV 7.Matthew 28:18 8.John 20:29 9.John 6:40, 17:24; 1 Timothy 6:12–16 10.Isaiah 66:6 11.Ephesians 2:1–10 12.Revelation 9:2 13.Psalm 90:1–4, 103:17 14.Matthew 24:35 NIV
