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§16 The Third Sign in Heaven: Bowls of Eschatological Plagues Poured Out on Babylon (Rev. 15:1–16:16)

According to the apocalyptic view of history, the spiritual and societal conditions of human existence will continue to deteriorate, and there is nothing any sociopolitical institution can do to reverse them. Salvation comes from outside of history, from God’s heavenly abode. In returning to the theme of divine judgment, already so vividly drawn in his visions of seven seals and trumpets, John is making this same point more keenly: salvation is from God and not from Babylon’s rulers. John’s is an imperialistic politic that champions the sovereign rule of God, and there is no room for compromise.

Perhaps this is why he begins this particular vision with echoes of the Exodus (cf. Boring, Revelation, p. 173): the bowls from which the wine of God’s wrath is poured bear a “family resemblance” to the plagues of Egypt. In John’s vision of the bowl-plagues, the true Israel stands protected by God on the other side of the Sea, made “Red” with fire. The remnant plays its harps rather than Miriam’s tambourine; but nonetheless it sings the song of Moses like the victorious Israelites of old, while the beast and its worshipers—the visionary equivalents of Pharaoh and his evil Egypt (cf. Ezek. 29:3–6a)—lie broken in the wake of God’s wrath. But it is the covenantal logic of the exodus event which controls any rehearsal of it, including here in John’s vision. Especially in the prophetic uses of the tradition, the exodus typology reminds the people of God’s faithfulness toward Israel and the Lord’s sovereignty over evil. The prophet’s intent was to solicit repentance and a renewal of faithfulness from Israel, to restore its relationship with God in expectation of God’s promised blessing.

John’s own situation is similar to the prophets; the crisis facing the church is analogous to the one that faced Israel. Thus, the “theo-logic” that makes sense of this vision is provided by the old story of Israel’s exodus from Egypt. For John the plagues of Egypt are “re-visioned” as bowls of wrath. They are divine judgments of human evil, which demonstrate not only the sovereignty of God’s rule but God’s unconditional faithfulness to the promise to liberate and bless Israel. Yet, as the biblical setting of the exodus narrative makes clear, the terrifying reality is this: God’s punishment of Egypt is indicative of what God’s punishment of Israel will be if Israel fails to “pay attention to” God’s commands and keep all “the Lord’s decrees” (Exod. 15:26; Rev. 14:12). For those believers who wish to return to “Egypt” (or Babylon) and who are inclined to disregard God’s “eternal gospel,” John’s vision of the bowl-plagues is also a warning to repent in order to escape a similar destiny.

15:1–2 / John sees another … sign, introducing the final celestial “sign” in a triadic sequence that began with the visions of the woman with child (12:1) and the great red dragon (12:3). As before, the seer locates the vision in heaven, even though it “points beyond itself and discloses the theological meaning of history” (Mounce, Revelation, p. 285). Even as the earlier two signs interpreted the human misery and historical ambiguity of the current period in terms of the conflict between the woman and the dragon, this third sign initiates the bowl-plagues through which the purposes of God for human history are completed.

John emphasizes that this third sign constitutes the last disclosure of God’s wrath and, in our view, brings to conclusion the “third woe” mentioned earlier in Revelation (cf. 11:14). Since God has responded to evil in a consistent manner throughout salvation’s history, the reader of Revelation assumes that the eschatological revelation of divine wrath will be similar to God’s past response to Egypt’s oppression of Israel, to Rome’s oppression of the earliest church, and to every Babylon’s oppression of each generation of God’s people. John views his vision as proleptic because the envisioned future is analogous to the enscripturated past: the God who acted through Moses and who acted again through the exalted Lamb is the same God who will act yet again through the returning Lamb. Thus, the eschatological community can sing “the songs of Moses and the Lamb” together as two hymns with a theocentric focus of praise.

In sharp contrast to the vision of the seven bowl-plagues that follows, John describes the celebration of those who had been victorious over the beast and his image (cf. 13:8). In our view, even though John does seem to have a special interest in the status of those believers who are killed for refusing to worship the beast (cf. 13:15), this community includes all who belong to the Lamb (cf. 14:4). Membership in the eschatological community does not require martyrdom, only fidelity.

15:3–4 / The phrase, song of Moses … and the song of the Lamb, prepares the reader for the hymn of praise which follows. Even though the hymn’s content derives from the biblical psalter, John’s reference to the song of Moses frames its theological importance. It is not immediately clear to the reader, however, to which version of Moses’ song John refers—whether to Exodus 15 or Deuteronomy 32. Because of John’s dependence upon the exodus typology, scholars have generally assumed that John has the Exodus version of the song in mind. Accordingly, the theology of this hymn is interpreted by Exodus 15: God is praised for the mighty act of Christ which once again has liberated the true Israel from their evil enemy.

However appropriate this consensus is for understanding the passage, three critical elements echo the Deuteronomist’s song of Moses that may suggest John had the deuteronomistic version of the song in mind as well. First, the great and marvelous actions of God are called just and true—a phrase echoing the central theme of the deuteronomistic song (cf. Deut. 32:3–4). John’s hymn, located at the conclusion of salvation’s history, praises God for keeping the promise of Israel’s redemption: a just God is true to the biblical promise of eschatological salvation, already hidden in the exodus event. Second, the Deuteronomist’s song of Moses is set in a context of Israel’s predicted unfaithfulness (cf. Deut. 31:14–29). God’s own fidelity to the promise of Israel’s ultimate salvation is unconditional. There will always be disparity between God’s loyalty to the covenant with Israel and Israel’s accommodations to pagan idolatries and immoralities. God’s gracious salvation of Israel is all the more surprising, then, and even shocking given this disparity. Finally, John’s hymn speaks of universal outcomes: all nations will come and worship before you. While the Exodus version of Moses’ song also speaks of God’s conquest of the nations, the setting of the song in Deuteronomy takes this one step beyond conquest (cf. Deut. 32:38) to the eschatological subjection of all nations to God (cf. Deut. 31:1–8; 32:44–33:29). This hope is repeated in John’s hymn, which also looks ahead to a day when the fortunes of God’s people will be reversed for the good and when the fortunes of the Lord’s former enemies, now under God’ curse, will be brought down. These apocalyptic themes of reversal and universal redemption, set in bold relief by the deuteronomistic song of Moses, express the extraordinary measure of God’s beneficence about which the eschatological community praises in song.

15:5–8 / The agents of the devastating bowl-plagues are the seven angels who hold the seven plagues in the temple, where God commissions those sacred tasks which complete the promised salvation. John qualifies the importance of the temple as the site of the angelic commissioning with the appositional phrase, the tabernacle of the Testimony. This phrase would seem to suggest that John continues to use the Exodus narrative as a template to arrange the events of his vision. Accordingly, after crossing the Reed Sea, Israel received the Decalogue (Exod. 19–20) and preserved a copy in the ark of the covenant, which they then placed inside the tabernacle of the Testimony (Exod. 25–26). The two tablets of the Decalogue were a permanent reminder that God’s relationship with Israel was covenantal and that Israel’s ongoing history was the location where that relationship was worked out. From a covenantal perspective, Israel was obliged to respond to the gracious God of the exodus in obedience to God’s Torah, written down on the two tablets (Exod. 24:8–12). All subsequent judgments by the prophets concerning Israel’s fitness to receive divine blessing were based on its observance of Torah. Perhaps John has this OT pattern in mind: those who do not obey God’s demand (cf. Rev. 14:12) and instead worship the beast (14:11) are justly condemned for the day of God’s wrath. They have not met the covenantal obligation to honor their sovereign creator God (cf. Rom. 1:18–21).

Symbolic of their status as heavenly instruments of the creator’s universal covenant with all creatures, the angels are dressed in priestly vestments—in clean, shining linen and … golden sashes around their chests. Rather than the mediation of covenantal blessing for the saints, their task will be the mediation of the wrath of God for those who reject God and follow the Evil One. God’s destruction of the anti-Christian kingdom is not arbitrary; it is justified by divine revelation in creation, in Torah, and finally in Christ.

The four living creatures are also a part of John’s vision. They had minor parts in John’s earlier drama of the Lamb’s coronation: they held the golden bowls containing the saints’ prayers (5:8). The contrast between that drama and this one, where they again have custody of seven golden bowls, is implicit and important. In this vision, the bowls are filled with the wrath of God rather than the prayers of the saints as before, and the bowls are given to avenging angels rather than to the exalted Lamb. Yet, the presence of the four living creatures, who hold the golden bowls in both scenes, may well establish an integral whole: the bowl-plagues answer the prayers of the saints for God’s vindication (cf. Rev. 8:3–5; Morris, Revelation, p. 185), which will make it possible for them to enter the promised land (15:1–4).

The final piece of noteworthy “furniture” in John’s vision is the smoke that filled the temple. From his reading of the OT prophets, John recognizes its twofold significance. First, smoke symbolizes the shekinah glory of God (cf. Ezek. 44:4)—the demonstration of God’s power to rule which is fully disclosed at the consummation of history (cf. Rev. 21). The presence of smoke is yet another visionary cue that the bowl-plagues mark the concluding chapter in the story of God’s wrath (cf. 15:1).

This point is underscored in John’s second observation concerning the smoke: it had made the only entrance into the temple impassable until the seven plagues of the seven angels were completed. The establishment of God’s glory in the new Jerusalem will follow the destruction of the old order. By locating the commissioning of these terrible plagues in the temple, amidst this furniture of heavenly doxology, John makes a significant statement about the purpose of divine retribution. Superficial criticism of a “just and true” God, whose harsh retribution against the nations seems a contradiction in character, fails to understand that God’s overarching intention is redemptive. God’s judgment of a fallen world is a means to restoring a lasting covenant between creator and creation.

16:1 / Scholars have long pointed out the similarities between the first six trumpet judgments (Rev. 8:6–9:21) and the first six bowl judgments (16:1–14; cf. Beasley-Murray, Revelation, pp. 238–39); and we have called attention to the “hailstorm” that links the seventh trumpet to the seventh bowl. In one sense, John’s vision of bowl-plagues repeats and emphasizes the previous point: divine judgment intends to bring the nations to repent and to confess God as sovereign creator and ruling Lord. Their refusal to repent, then, justifies God’s condemnation of them and their anti-Christian kingdom. There is another sense, however, that John’s newest vision expands and deepens the significance of this theme. On the face of it, the bowl judgments extend the scope of God’s wrath. Earlier only a “third” of the created order was affected; in this vision, however, the bowls of God’s wrath are poured out onto the entire earth and its unbelieving population. In fact, unlike before when the martyrs experienced a portion of God’s judgment of the world order, the bowl-plagues are more discriminating and “pass over” the believing community. These differences suggest a spiral of severity, finally reaching its climax with the collapse of the world order. This is not to say that the bowl-plagues follow the completion of the trumpet-plagues according to some chronological scheme. But they do denote together a particular theological conviction that John now views through his apocalyptic lens from a different “moment” of salvation’s history. The exaltation of Christ began a period of increased tribulation, envisioned by the trumpet-plagues, that will intensify in severity until the complete collapse of the fallen creation eventuates, envisioned by the bowl-plagues. The inevitability of complete chaos and the utter inability of any social institution to do anything about it points to the ultimate hope of Christ’s return, when he comes from outside of history in order to transform history. Against this field of vision, then, the bowl judgments represent the conclusion of the “third woe” (cf. 11:14), the demise of evil dominion, and the preparation for the new social order characterized by God’s shalom and grace.

We also find here a second prophetic typology, this one of Job, employed by John to help focus his “meta-theological” concern: why does a good God pave the path to salvation with violence and vengeance, chaos and collapse? The plague of “ugly and painful sores” poured from the first bowl on those who “had the mark of the beast” is of decisive importance for establishing a proper context for understanding the totality of the bowl judgments. And its general importance for John’s vision is determined in turn by its particular allusions to the OT story of Job.

The allusive link between the two is unmistakable. (1) In both cases, the plague is “ugly and painful sores” (cf. Job 2:1–10). (2) The purpose of the plague is similar in both cases: both plagues provoke actual responses to God which are useful in measuring humanity’s relationship with God. Thus, even Job’s plague is unjustly demanded by Satan as a test of Job’s fidelity. John employs the same image to depict the just consequence (Rev. 16:5–7) of a response quite the opposite of Job’s. Whereas Job glorified God, the world “refused to repent and glorify” God (Rev. 16:9). In that John seems to assume the logical relationship between repentance and plagues, this contrast between the two stories is vital to his theological purpose. What explains the opposite responses to God is that Job is a prophetic exemplar of true piety (cf. James 5:10–11); he glorifies God, even though plagued by horrific sores, because he enjoys a right relationship with God. The world, on the other hand, remains obdurate; it refuses to glorify God because it does not have a relationship with the Lord.

By employing the Job typology, John continues to address the problem of theodicy—a problem which comes to its climax in this vision of bowl-plagues (cf. Beasley-Murray, Revelation, pp. 239–41). Human misery actually occasions a test of faith in God, where one’s relationship with God is clarified. In the case of Job, whose faith in God is firm, the response is to glorify God. In the case of “people who had the mark of the beast,” who “cursed the name of God,” the response is to refuse “to repent and glorify” God. Here, then, is John’s solution to the problem of theodicy: divine judgment is just when viewed in terms of humanity’s response to it, for only in humanity’s misery is the true nature of their relationship with God concretely disclosed (cf. 1 Pet. 1:3–12).

The vision returns John to the heavenly temple and to the seven angels he had met earlier in the vision (cf. 15:1). Again he hears an unidentified loud voice, presumably the Lord’s (cf. Isa. 66:6), which instructs the angels to pour out the seven bowls of God’s wrath on the earth (cf. 14:10).

16:2–4 / The first three bowl plagues parallel the natural calamities that issued earlier from the blasts of the first three trumpets and echo certain Egyptian plagues of the exodus tradition. The difference is that this cycle of plagues attacks people who had the mark of the beast from its onset. The word sores is used in the OT in reference to leprosy. Ford believes that John meant his readers to think of leprosy and its association with idolatry and apostasy—i.e., with religiously unacceptable people (Revelation, p. 270). The bowl judgments concentrate the readers’ attention on the unbelieving world, but from a particular perspective that justifies God’s eschatological indictment of them.

The second and third bowls of wrath are poured out to destroy the sources of water and so of human life (Exod. 7:17–21). According to the trumpet judgments, only one third of the water was destroyed; now, the devastation is total. The sense John conveys is one of intensified urgency, even of a fatalism that the world’s rejection of Christ has made its salvation a real impossibility. The blood, which has polluted the waters, carries an ironical meaning: on the one hand, Christ’s blood purchases a people for God (cf. 5:9–10); yet, on the other hand, his atoning blood is rejected by the people who had the mark of the beast. The blood-plague envisions God’s righteous judgment of a people who have rejected the blood of the Lamb.

16:5–7 / This very point is taken up again and pressed home by the angel in charge of the waters, whose hymn of praise echoes the earlier hymn sung by God’s people in 15:3–4 (Mounce, Revelation, p. 295). Both acknowledge that both salvation and judgment stem from the same Holy One … Lord God Almighty, whose decisions are never capricious (unlike pagan deities) and always true and just. Penalties, however harsh, are not arbitrary but always deserved. Because Revelation ties the temple’s altar to God’s vindication of the suffering saints (cf. 16:6; 8:3–5; 14:18), the finality of God’s judgment against a fallen world is decided not only by its rejection of God who reigns from heaven but by its rejection of God’s people who reign on earth (5:10).

16:8–9 / The fourth angel poured out his bowl on the sun (cf. Exod. 10:23). The immediate result is different than before when the loss of sunlight resulted in darkness (cf. 6:12; 8:12). This time the sun … scorched people with fire … seared by the intense heat (contra 7:16). Incredibly, the people’s response to God is precisely the same as before: they cursed the name of God … and refused to repent and glorify him (cf. 9:21).

While this vision has unbelievers in view, this refrain of unbelief echoes the earlier condemnation of the Thyatiran congregation, which tolerates the false prophetess, “Jezebel,” even though she is unwilling to repent of her heresies (cf. 2:21). In light of Christ’s condemnation of the Thyatira church, the reader of this passage can sense John’s pastoral interest in unfaithful believers, whose eschatological salvation is imperiled by their unfaithfulness and who must also repent and give God glory. Only then will they belong to the true Israel and be preserved from the scorching sun (cf. 7:16).

16:10–11 / Darkness is now confined to the throne of the beast and his kingdom, the result of the fifth bowl (cf. Exod. 10:21–29). In biblical literature, darkness is a metaphor for evil. In this vision of darkness, the creator of light (cf. Gen. 1:3) defeats evil. Among the terrors of evil is ignorance of God, also symbolized by darkness. Thus, pagans are characterized by their futility of mind, which separates them from God’s transforming grace (cf. Eph. 4:17–18). Those who are linked with a darkened throne do not know God to give God glory; their obduracy is logical and tragic: they refused to repent of what they had done.

16:12–14 / The close parallelism between the sixth bowl and the sixth trumpet (cf. 9:13–19) judgments is surely intentional and warrants our close attention. In our view, the parallelism forms a complete picture of God’s growing wrath against evil, and prepares the reader for the conclusion to the third woe of God’s righteous retribution (Beasley-Murray, Revelation, pp. 243–44). As mentioned in the introductory chapter, the apocalyptic idea of history is characterized by fatalism—the unabated progress of misery and evil toward complete spiritual and social chaos. Appropriately, only one third of humanity was initially affected (cf. 9:15); here the whole world encounters God’s wrath, indicating the devolution of earth toward its destruction. Interpreted christologically, Christ’s past death and exaltation result in God’s defeat of evil and death, and Christ’s future return results in God’s destruction of evil and death.

The central image in this parallelism is the great river Euphrates, a symbol of Rome’s vulnerability and of the promised land (cf. 9:14). Whereas before the river was linked to angels who destroyed one third of the human population, in this new vision, its water was dried up to prepare the way for the kings from the East, coming from beyond the Euphrates with a demonic army under the aegis of Babylon’s unholy trinity—the dragon … beast … and false prophet.

The phrase echoes two different typologies of redemption. The first half of the phrase echoes the exodus tradition, where God dries the bed of the Reed Sea so that God’s people could escape evil Egypt. This prophetic typology continues with references to the three evil spirits that look like frogs—no doubt an allusion to the Egyptian plague of frogs (Exod. 8:1–15). The second half echoes the Matthean tradition of Jesus’ birth, where kings come from the East to prepare the way of the Messiah, who will lead eschatological Israel on a new exodus into the promised land. What is used here as a metaphor for evil is used elsewhere as a metaphor for divine blessing. Once again, John uses irony to evoke a sense of anticipation: what currently appears to be a foreboding and mounting evil will turn into an occasion of divine blessing. The reader understands that while the army gathers for the battle on the great day of God Almighty to exercise its miraculous power with evil intent, the outcome has already been decided in favor of God Almighty because of the Lamb’s death.

16:15–16 / This brief interlude functions as a footnote to the sixth bowl plague. As is true with each interlude found within the three judgment septets, this passage confirms the faithfulness of God as a response to the crisis of faith within John’s audience. Interpreted by the point John’s interludes make, the well-known caveat, Behold! I come like a thief! (cf. 1 Thess. 5:2–5; 2 Pet. 3:10; Matt. 24:43–44; Acts 1:6–7; Rev. 3:3), is an exhortation to repent in order to receive divine blessing. The following beatitude envisions the promise of God’s faithfulness to those who are themselves faithful to God: Blessed is he who stays awake … so that he may not … be shamefully exposed (cf. 1 Thess. 5:6–7; 2 Cor. 5:2).

The place of the “battle on the great day” is identified as Armageddon. Attempts to locate Armageddon geographically are futile; in fact, no such place exists to the best of our knowledge (Boring, Revelation, p. 176). The cities of Revelation are typically locations of theological significance and should be interpreted as such. Beasley-Murray suggests the theological meaning located at Armageddon is prophetic and stands “for the last resistance of anti-god forces prior to the kingdom of Christ” (Revelation, p. 246). In any case, John is not engaged in speculation about the actual location or date of some future battle; neither is he predicting a specific event of history when evil will be completely destroyed in military combat (Ladd, Revelation, p. 216). John’s prophetic concern is to characterize the suddenness (like being surprised by a thief) and the surety of God’s eventual victory over the forces of evil. His pastoral concern utilizes dramatic images to evoke the impression that there is an urgent need to repent and glorify God before the consummation of salvation’s history.