Chapter 15: The Scene Preceding the Seven Last Plagues

A short but significant chapter. God will make way for the now fast-approaching kingdom of His Son from which evil must be banished. The third and final phase of preparatory judgements is found here—“the last plagues.” There are seven of them, filling up the fury of God! A solemn word indeed for man. From the second verse we gather what has particularly angered Almighty God, namely the Beast; his image, and his mark. But God will, as ever, be victorious over the power of evil, and He will have saints to share the victory with Himself. Here we see them on the ”sea of glass mingled with fire.” A position of spotless purity was theirs, reached through the trial of their faith—”tried with fire” (1 Peter 1:77That the trial of your faith, being much more precious than of gold that perisheth, though it be tried with fire, might be found unto praise and honor and glory at the appearing of Jesus Christ: (1 Peter 1:7)). They were victors in the days of man’s worst antagonism to God since the cross. Now, they have “harps of God!” How sweet is victory after suffering! Their songs are songs of victory. Such was “the song of Moses” surely, when “Israel saw that great work which the Lord did upon the Egyptians” (Ex: 14:31). At that time Moses and the children of Israel sang a song unto the Lord who had triumphed gloriously, having thrown the horse and his rider into the sea. On this occasion too, Moses is referred to as the servant of the Lord. Numerous, instructive and heart warming are the many references throughout the Scriptures to Moses as the servant of God. In the last chapter of Malachi, the last book of the Old Testament we read “remember ye the law of Moses My servant” (Mal. 4:44Remember ye the law of Moses my servant, which I commanded unto him in Horeb for all Israel, with the statutes and judgments. (Malachi 4:4)). “Moses verily was faithful in all His [God’s] house” (see Heb. 3:55And Moses verily was faithful in all his house, as a servant, for a testimony of those things which were to be spoken after; (Hebrews 3:5)). Now in the last book of the Bible the song of the victors is that of Moses, the servant of God. One would like to speak of his presence with Jesus on the Mount of Transfiguration, when he, and Elias, spake of His departure which He should accomplish at Jerusalem, but space forbids.
“The Song of the Lamb” too—ah!—let us never forget—it is a song of victory after suffering. “Ought not Christ to have suffered these things, and to enter into His glory?” (Luke 24:2626Ought not Christ to have suffered these things, and to enter into his glory? (Luke 24:26)).
The ascription of praise here to the Lord God Almighty is worthy of attention. God is given His due place of honour, and justified for all His ways of righteous government in the earth, and His Judgments. Romans 3:44God forbid: yea, let God be true, but every man a liar; as it is written, That thou mightest be justified in thy sayings, and mightest overcome when thou art judged. (Romans 3:4) may fittingly be quoted here—“that Thou mightest be justified in Thy sayings, and mightest overcome when Thou art judged.”
It seems clear from the allusion to “the temple of the tabernacle of the testimony in heaven” that these final judgments are in view of the deliverance of God’s saints, suffering at this time under the Roman Beast and the Antichrist. The ‘seven’ angels having the seven last plagues are seen in the vision as “clothed in pure and white linen”—characteristic of that scene to which they belong, so manifestly opposite to what was seen on the earth. Their breasts are girded with golden girdles. They are not now the bearers of good tidings to men—instead they are the executors of divine justice and judgment. We may here recall Revelation 1:13,13And in the midst of the seven candlesticks one like unto the Son of man, clothed with a garment down to the foot, and girt about the paps with a golden girdle. (Revelation 1:13) where Christ Himself, seen in the character of a judge, is “girt about the paps with a golden girdle”—divine righteousness holding in His affections, for judgment is His strange work.
It was one of the four living creatures who gave the golden bowls full of the wrath of God to the seven angels. The twenty-four elders are not seen here, which is in keeping with the scene before us. Judgment on impious man, unmitigated judgment, is before God, and everything, for the moment, is subservient to this—“no man was able to enter into the temple, till the seven plagues of the seven angels were fulfilled” (Rev. 15:88And the temple was filled with smoke from the glory of God, and from his power; and no man was able to enter into the temple, till the seven plagues of the seven angels were fulfilled. (Revelation 15:8)).