§8 God’s Lamb Opens the Seventh Seal (Rev. 8:1–5)

The immediate result of the breaking of the seventh and final seal is silence in heaven for about half an hour. Since John does not provide the reader with a cipher for this heavenly calm, various explanations have been offered: it is a rhetorical device for “dramatic silence,” or the seventh seal symbolizes a sense of finality (Caird), or a pause in the vision itself (Swete), or the aftermath of total destruction (Rissi), or the quiet environs of worship when prayers are offered to God (Beasley-Murray). While leaning toward a combination of the first and last explanations, we do not favor any interpretation which presumes a chronology of events. In our view, the silence that John notes does not indicate the final episode in a series of eschatological events; rather, it cues the reader to the resumption of John’s larger vision of the exaltation of the slain Lamb. Thus, the seer may be noting nothing more than another dramatic contrast in his vision’s tone—from catastrophic calamity to loud celebration to a short period of silence—which first catches his attention, and then calms and prepares him for what follows.

8:1–5 / Apparently during this half an hour, the seer is introduced to the seven angels … who were given seven trumpets to sound the final measure of God’s triumph over the evil world order (8:6–11:19). As John looks on, he is again interrupted by another angel (cf. 7:2; 10:1; 14:6ff.; 18:1), a formulaic expression found at the beginning of a parenthesis to aid the interpreter’s understanding of what follows. This parenthesis functions like an “apocalyptic bridge,” linking together the seal and trumpet judgments as parts of a single reality.

The new angel functions as liturgist during this particular season of heavenly worship. Since the heavenly temple has opened its doors because of Christ’s exaltation (11:19; cf. Heb. 8:1–2), the angel comes to offer a golden censer, full of much incense, and takes his place on the golden altar before the throne of God. These actions establish the appropriate setting for God to hear the prayers of all the saints, which invokes the worship of God regnant.

The prayers offered to God are different from those brought to the Lord in bowls of incense by the four living creatures and the twenty-four elders (5:8). In this instance, the whole church makes petition for divine revelation, not unlike that offered by the prophet Elijah on Mount Carmel when he asked God to vindicate his ministry and to make God’s reign known. Elijah’s ultimate purpose was that “these people will know … you … and that you are turning their hearts back again” (1 Kings 18:36–37). The “fire of the Lord” which fell and consumed the altar of Ba’al in divine retribution was in fact a revelation of God’s lordship over even God’s enemies (1 Kings 18:38–39).

Likewise, when the angel … filled the censer with fire from the altar, and hurled it on the earth, the word picture mediates God’s positive response to the church’s petition for some clear evidence that would vindicate their devotion to God rather than to God’s enemies. If the Elijah tradition provides the biblical backdrop for this as well as for the subsequent vision of the trumpet judgments, then John’s pastoral purpose is understood accordingly: God’s judgment against God’s enemies reveals the triumph of God’s rule so that those congregations, now spiritually lax, will turn their hearts back to their Lord.