The Fifth Seal differs from what has preceded or will follow, as having all the action proper to it confined to heaven. The seal was opened by the Lamb upon the throne in heaven; there also was John. But in this he sees neither horses going forth to earth, nor, as in the sixth and seventh, scenes of things on earth. His vision is confined here to what is altogether in heaven: the souls of those that had been slain for the word of God, and the testimony they held, were seen beneath the altar; and they cried with a loud voice, saying, “How long, O Lord, holy and true, dost thou not judge and avenge our blood on them that dwell on the earth?” Who are these sufferers for the sake of God's word and testimony? If we trace backward, we find the only ones they can be are those whom John represents in chapter 1—the church; whose very standing and calling, in one aspect, is,” We are appointed as sheep for the slaughter, we are killed all day long.” And observe the light their word casts upon the character of the preceding seals. “How long till thou dost judge and avenge our blood,” &c. Had they then seen nothing of judgment or vengeance in what had preceded in the four first seals? Nothing; neither was there; for the answer from the throne confirms that which their demand thus suggests, and bids them wait still for His revenge.
But how came they now to be thus distinctly heard, and that as consciously enjoying full fellowship with all the righteous ways and purpose of Him who was on the throne? Why now are these, some of whom at least had lain there a long time, now seen? Why now heard with loud voice crying unto God for vengeance? Why now each put in white, though told to wait? Simply thus, because now there was about to be a new witness—new in some senses at least—brought forward—a witness which had signs and marks about it, as distinctly peculiar, as were the signs and marks which distinguished the apostleship of Paul from that of Peter, though not of the same kind. The character of these will appear hereafter; one, however, is marked in chapter vii. These who were hid beneath the altar had needed, had known, no seal such as we find given to the one hundred and forty-four thousand of the earth. Daring their whole time God was merely acting in providence; and directly He is about to step beyond it, their number is closed, and the one hundred and forty-four thousand from the earth sealed, not from death—for as fellow-servants and brethren they also were to be killed, as these were, but, as in Ezek. 19, from the judgments of the Lord. (See chap. 7: 1.) This alone would be a strong ground to my own soul in proof that the heavenly disciple is not to look for even a ripple of trouble to precede his seeing Jesus; and, besides this, I find these fully recognized, and white robed given them, though they are told they cannot take their place With the Lord as avenger yet for a little season, and a little season it will be until their fellow-servants and their brethren who should be killed as they were, should be fulfilled.
O the unbounded riches of the grace of God! Not only must the church be set up at Jerusalem first, as we see in Acts, but, such is His loving-kindness, there also must be found at last, as we see here; for these brethren and fellow-servants we find are (chap. 7.) Jews of every tribe twelve thousand. I might make here a remark, applicable also to Israel's return to the land, as connected with the appearing of the disciples in glory. To man's eye distant things often seem as one, which a nearer approach and more close examination prove to be divided into many parts. We are too prone to overlook the steps of Israel's return from their present state of scattering among the nations, to their establishment in the land; and likewise of the stages by which the disciples will journey into the fullness of glory. Now I think it is plain that our Lord entered not at once out of suffering into the glory which was the recompense of His toils. (See Phil. 2) After His resurrection there was an interval until He had been to the Father, in which He could not present Himself to His disciples as the subject of their enjoyment. (John 19) There was then a longer period during which He was seen from time to time by them, but not as the object of their faith fixed within the veil; then, when ascending, He went up from earth to the cloud, and thence to His Father. Now it does seem to me evident that this fifth seal, the substance of chapter vii., from verse 9 to end; chapter 19: 1-10 and 11-21; and chapter 20, presents stages in the entrance of the disciples into the glory in themselves very distinct the one from the other; I leave this for the consideration of others. The title by which these beneath the altar address God (“Despot,” δεσπότης), as well as the expectation they express toward Him of vengeance and judgment, both seem to me to mark the connection and subjection of the whole scene to the throne of chapters 4 and 5.
The action of the Sixth Seal is confined to earth. As a whole, it seems to me, like the opening of Zechariah's prophecy (chap. 1:7-11), to present a scene, the grand, if not sole, object of which is, to bring to light the state of the earth. In both cases the entire scene seems subservient to the inquiry, “What is the state of the earth?” Here it comes, however, in a connection different from what it does in Zechariah. That there is, in the general testimony of scripture, a shaking of the heavens as preceding, and as quite distinct from, the removal of the heavens, I think all are agreed; the former ushering in Jesus' return to Israel, the latter the prelude to Clod becoming all in all. That the scene here is the shaking, as distinguished from and preceding, by upwards of one thousand years, the removal of the heavens from before the face of the great white throne (Rev. 20:1111And I saw a great white throne, and him that sat on it, from whose face the earth and the heaven fled away; and there was found no place for them. (Revelation 20:11)) is what I believe. If it be objected (ver. 14), “the heaven departed as a scroll when it is rolled together” does not comport with the shaking, but removal, I answer, first, the Spirit seems here speaking according not to what is to be in reality, but to what is as to appearances. And this is proved by verse 13: “And the stars of heaven fell unto the earth, even as a fig-tree casteth her untimely figs, when she is shaken of a mighty wind.” The same sort of earthquake which would give to men on earth this appearance, as to the stars, would give likewise, as to the heavens, the appearance of departing as in the rolling up of a scroll. Secondly, both the shaking and the removing are upon the same principle as to God's ways, and the character of results (with regard to both His glory, in connection with man, and redeemed man's entrance into enjoyment in Him); and therefore the one is but a premonitor and precursor of the other.
It is thus in the close of chapter 5 we find the recognition which creation gives to Jesus, when He takes the book, expressing itself in terms such as fully suit only the time of the full manifestation of His Lordship; so may it be here. For this throughout scripture is the way of the Spirit; He sees in one thing which is little something infinitely larger, and so speaks: for in the lesser thing, the counsel, and plan, and mind of God, as bringing in the greater, is seen, and so the less becomes the pledge as well as the precursor of the greater. See David's song, 2 Sam. 22: “In my distress I called upon the Lord, and cried to my God; and he did hear my voice out of his temple, and my cry did enter into his ears. Then the earth shook and trembled; the foundations of heaven moved and shook, because he was wroth. There went up a smoke out of his nostrils, and fire out of his mouth devoured: coals were kindled by it. He bowed the heavens also and came down; and darkness was under his feet. And he rode upon a cherub, and did fly; and he was seen upon the wings of the wind. And he made darkness pavilions round about him, dark waters, and thick clouds of the skies,” &c. &c. And, thirdly, I say that the language is not so strong as what is used in the Old Testament for the shaking, and shown to refer to it alone by the context. See, for instance, in Isa. 34, which is connected with the judgment of Idumea: “All the host of heaven shall be dissolved, and the heavens shall be rolled together as a scroll: and all their host shall fall down, as the leaf falleth off from the vine, and as a falling fig from the fig-tree. For my sword shall be bathed in heaven: behold, it shall come down upon Idumea, and upon the people of my curse, to judgment.”
The whole attention of John in this seal seems as exclusively shut up to the appearance of what is seen from the earth, and to the effect upon man there, as in the preceding seal to heaven. The quaking of the earth first calls his attention as he rests above in heaven (chap. 4:1, 2); and then the appearances produced around the heavens, of the earth, and throughout its every part, by the earthquake. Then the universal panic which follows among all the inhabitants of earth is described. As in heaven, when the Lamb first took the book, the mind of heaven confessed Him, from one and all there, as worthy, so here the mind of earth is expressed, and high and low, rich and poor, bond and free, all on whom the light of love and grace had shined without effect, tell the deep secrets common to every soul, that God is not only hated and dreaded, but that ever, all through their light and mirthful career, guilty conscience had kept alive the suspicion that some day or other He would burst in upon them. The sudden shock and the fearful signs of the earthquake wring the secret from them, and, oh, how it tells of man's rebellious heart! Six thousand years of mercy and goodness has God been showing, and the only thought of man's heart in nature still is that He is an austere God. Six thousand years, too, man has been boasting in his own wisdom and sufficiency, and yet at a mere earthquake he will do what Adam did at first, try to hide himself from omnipresent Omniscience; yea, rather be crushed than endure the thought of meeting God face to face.
In this shaking not a trumpet is sounded, not a vial poured out; and I do not believe that God reveals Himself or the Lamb as in judgment in it, but that the cry “to the mountains and rocks, Fall on us, and hide us from the face of him that sitteth on the throne, and from the wrath of the Lamb: for the great day of his wrath is come; and who shall be able to stand?” is just merely the expression of guilty man's hatred, and fear, and unwillingness to meet God. If it be said, Why should God care to elicit this? I would answer, as connected with the church thus removed, with Israel just about to be sealed, and with the world just about to be visited in judgment under the seventh seal, and with the character and ways of God involved in each of these three acts, purpose and object enough can surely be seen. It is remarkable that while we have here the first action of man in nature, when such disorder in his circumstances takes place as to make him think God has broken in upon him (an endeavor to escape from. Him by any effort, even self-destruction), when God and the Lord are present in the very act of wrath these dread, their action is quite different, and instead of endeavoring to escape, they gather together against both the one and the other. (Chap. 19:19.) I would add, that as the language of man under the sixth seal is not this language when the Lord does come in wrath, so neither could it be the language when the heavens and the earth have passed away, and the great white throne of judgment has been set up. I do not suppose that the words they utter must necessarily be upon their lips, though they may indeed. It is, however, a thing quite common to God the Holy Ghost, in presenting any party with a view to its character being learned, to put into its mouth, not the words he might use, but the force and substance of these words as understood to God—and, believing the object of the Spirit here to be to draw attention simply to the state universal of the earth, I conceive thus it may be here. Nothing seems taken notice of here beyond those alive on the earth, after the church's removal, and at the time of the sealing of Israel; but the whole seems to run its course previous to the Lamb leaving the throne of chapters 4 and 5.