Blog
Revelation 19
By Joe Haynes
March 31, 2022
These final 4 chapters of Revelation contain the exciting prophecies of the event we’ve literally all been waiting for—the return of the Lord Jesus in glory and majesty, followed by the great victory over Satan; the resurrection of the saints; Judgment; the New Heavens and Earth; the New Jerusalem! I’m sure you know there are lots of different ways to interpret these things—many alternative views of how the end times will all come to pass. So what I want to do is not just add my own interpretation to the menu of eschatological systems you can choose from—I want to help you see both the details of what John wrote down and the significance of how he wrote it down. If you grow in your appreciation for the richness of this book of the Bible, and in your confidence in it as the Word of God for His Church, in order that we might believe in and stay awake as we wait for Jesus to come again, then I will have succeeded. I would rather spend our brief time together helping you see what is here for us to see than to give you all the arguments and reasons why I think you should interpret this book the way I do. My goal is not to convince you that I’m right; my purpose is to help you appreciate what is here to be seen.
When you try to understand the Book of Revelation, it’s really hard to keep seeing both the forest and the trees. There are so many details to pay attention to, it’s hard to also keep the structure in mind. But the more you pay attention to the careful way John framed and structured the things he wrote down, the harder it is to remember the intricate detail of it all. It’s challenging to keep your eye on the forest and on the trees.
As you scan chapter 19, you can quickly see that while this chapter ends with a great gathering of nations to make war against the Lord, the chapter begins with what appears to be choirs singing a chorus of Hallelujahs. The Hallelujah choruses appear to both praise God for what is in the past, and praise God for what is about to happen. The first part, up to verse 4, looks back on God’s faithful judgment; the second part, from there to verse 8, looks forward and transitions from all the previous prophecies in Revelation, to the second coming of Christ and the arrival of His Kingdom. But these verses overflow with intense celebration of His coming. The sense of anticipation is deeply personal. Look at the way this passage is divided in terms of two women—one who was always unfaithful to the Lord Jesus, and the other who is a faithful, pure bride for the King. The first section of hallelujahs up to verse 4 celebrate the punishment of the great prostitute who is the epitome of adultery committed against Jesus. The second section of hallelujah choruses, from verses 6-8 celebrate the readiness of the bride of Christ for the “marriage of the Lamb” (v7).
One application we should draw from this is that God deserves to be praised both for how this passage predicts He will complete executing justice on the adulterous, apostate church represented by the prostitute, and for how this passage predicts He will completely preserve and protect the true church, and purify her, presenting her as a bride for His Son at the second coming. The big event, therefore, in chapter 19, is the arrival of the bridegroom. And the whole chapter, therefore, is oriented around a tale of two women: how God judged the Prostitute who betrayed His Son, and how God made the Bride ready to marry His Son. Of course, the joyful praises climax when it is revealed that the Church of Jesus Christ will be ready for her bridegroom. Doesn’t this show how wonderfully appropriate it is that the second coming of Jesus to claim the people He has prepared to reign with Him is compared by analogy to a wedding? The analogy of a wedding, and of a marriage to depict something of the wonder that God is, through Christ, even now making ready a people to be His people is glorious. This theme of making the Bride ready for the Bridegroom has to be kept in view in order to interpret all of this rightly. And of course, if you read this with a detached, coldly clinical attitude, like you would study sample in a laboratory, you’ll miss out on how this is supposed to affect those who read and hear it. You’re supposed to locate your own story and your own destiny in the story of the woman God makes ready to be with Jesus. You’re supposed to praise Him for the judgment He is soon going to rain down on the head of the Prostitute, and thank Him for His mercy that you don’t share her fate.
Take a step back, if you will, and look at the broader context of Revelation, and remember that we’ve just seen the praises of verses 1-4 as pointing backward to God’s judgment on the Prostitute, and then that the praises of 5-8 point forward to God’s salvation of the Bride of Christ. Two opposite women. And the way their two opposite destinies are set side by side in this chapter shows that this chapter is a middle turning point between their stories. This great prostitute was revealed to John at the beginning of chapter 17. “Then one of the seven angels who had the seven bowls came and said to me, ‘Come, I will show you the judgment of the great prostitute who is seated on many waters…’,” (Rev. 17:1 ESV). Everything after that, until chapter 19:4, predicts the justice of God’s judgments upon that adulterous woman. But then, from 19 and on, the new story is focused on the other woman, the Bride of the Lamb. It's not until we get to chapter 21, and are introduced to the Bride of Christ in all her glory, that we see the wording is almost identical to the way the Prostitute was introduced earlier! Compare 17:1 to the passage beginning in chapter 21:9. “Then came one of the seven angels who had the seven bowls full of the seven last plagues and spoke to me, saying, ‘Come, I will show you the Bride, the wife of the Lamb.’," (Rev. 21:9 ESV).
Two women. One an adulterous prostitute judged by God. The other a pure bride, united to Jesus Christ forever. The whole section of Revelation from chapter 17-21, then, is built around two women and their opposite destinies, with chapter 19 functioning as the turning point between them. Now, don’t just notice the women. Where they are introduced matters. The scenery around them is important because it helps us clue into the way their stories are being told.
To show John the great prostitute, the angel in chapter 17:3 carries John, in the spirit, “into a wilderness” where he sees her sitting on the beast; to show John the “wife of the Lamb,” the angel carries John, also in the spirit, to a “great, high mountain” to view the arrival of the New Jerusalem. Here’s where the one of the most famous analogies from Israel’s history jumps obviously into the spotlight: the prostitute in the wilderness is an image drawn from Israel’s disobedient 40 years in the wilderness when Moses had the difficult task of leading those people—and all of them were sentenced to die in the wilderness where they disobeyed God. All except Joshua and Caleb. The Prostitute seen in the wilderness is portrayed on the pattern of Israel in the wilderness. But by comparison, then, the Wife of the Lamb is an image drawn from not what actually happened to Israel, but from what was promised to Israel if she had been faithful to keep covenant with God. The setting for the arrival of the wife of the Lamb is not the wilderness but the promised land, as if Israel had kept God’s covenant instead of breaking the covenant! And in fact, when the Wife of the Lamb finally enters her eternal dwelling place with her Lord and God, it is because He fulfilled the covenant for her, and then made her holy.
The event alluded to, when John is taken to a high mountain in order to see the arrival of the New Jerusalem in the New Promised Land, is when God took Moses to a high mountain and showed him the land He was going to give to Israel. In Numbers 27:12, we read, "The LORD said to Moses, "Go up into this mountain of Abarim and see the land that I have given to the people of Israel." (Num. 27:12 ESV) Now it’s later in Deuteronomy 34, that Moses finally does that. We read, "Then Moses went up from the plains of Moab to Mount Nebo, to the top of Pisgah, which is opposite Jericho. And the LORD showed him all the land…" (Deut. 34:1 ESV) Moses died on that mountain because of how he had previously disobeyed God. But this time, when in the antitype of that, John is shown the inheritance of the Wife of the Lamb, the story has a glorious ending.
There are layers to this contrast between the destinies of these two women: the Great Prostitute and the Wife of the Lamb. One dies in the wilderness without ever crossing the Jordan, like the disobedient generation of Israel who never believed God could give them the victory over the wicked nations living in the land He promised to Abraham. The other receives all the blessings promised to those who keep His Covenant, because Jesus kept the Covenant they receive the benefits of His obedience on account of their faith in Him. And when she enters the Promised Land, (and remember, that entrance is alluded to in the view from the high mountain in Rev 21:9!) she lives there with God forever! So you see, the Promised Land was the promise of a return to living with God like Adam and Eve lived with God in Eden; the New Heavens and the New Earth complete the whole story of the Bible and restore to the redeemed of Adam’s race, the paradise he forfeited. Our destiny and dwelling with God is as His New Jerusalem, in a New Promised Land, in the New Heavens and New Earth!
How should this insight, of the stories and destinies of two opposite symbolic women, from Rev 17-22, with chapter 19 as the hinge between them, how should it influence how we interpret what is predicted to still come to pass? I suggest that you need to notice that in Revelation, placed in between the praise that God has judged the Prostitute, that God has made the Bride ready, in chapter 19, on the one hand, and then the entrance of the Bride into her dwelling place with God forever, in chapter 21, on the other hand, there is another chapter whose predictions allude to the events that took place when Moses was succeeded by Joshua, who led Israel in the conquest of Canaan. That chapter, of course, is chapter 20, the prediction of the Thousand Years.
To put this another way, John’s vision in these chapters has two big, symmetrical sections that are both about symbolic women, and symbolic cities. The first one is an echo of Israel in the wilderness, the second one of an ideal, covenant-keeping Israel having arrive in her eternal home. The first one is the theme of Revelation 17-18. The second one is the theme of Revelation 21-22. What lies between Israel in the wilderness and Israel as a Kingdom in the Promised Land, is Israel conquering and cleansing the Promised Land. Just like that, what lies between God’s judgment of Babylon the Great and God’s everlasting dwelling with the New Jerusalem, is the arrival of God’s Son and the resurrection of His people as a military force conquering and cleansing the earth under the rule of Jesus Christ as King. This is the story that is foretold in chapter 19:11-21 with the return of King Jesus and the defeat of the beast and the great slaughter of enemy nations; and in chapter 20 with the thousand-year rule and reign of Jesus, with his resurrected saints for 1000 years on earth until the final judgment.
If I can try and put that more simply, and in light of the parallel structure introducing two women, in the wilderness and then on the high mountain seeing New Jerusalem arrive, and of the eventful portion in between, in chapters 19-20, I would have to say something like this: Until Jesus comes back, the age we are living in is like Israel’s 40 year journey through the wilderness. When Jesus comes back, the next thousand years will be like Joshua leading the tribes of Israel to conquer the Promised Land. After the world has been thus cleansed, and everything in the world brought fully under the rule of Jesus, then the New Heavens and New Earth, i.e., the new Universe God will re-create at that time, will be the Holy Kingdom of Priests, the ultimate glory of God’s people on Earth, the bright, heavenly Kingdom fulfilling God’s promises to King David. Then there will be peace in the Kingdom forevermore.
Yet there is another plot, another theme brought to the fore in chapter 19, even larger and more encompassing than the one of the two opposite women. It is the love-story of the Lamb and His Bride. You remember the Lamb? Introduced as the Lamb in chapter 6 (although as High Priest in chapter 1!), He has been constantly present throughout John’s vision. Chapter 19:7 gives this as the reason for rejoicing: “…for the marriage of the Lamb has come and his Bride has made herself ready…” This is the Lamb who was slaughtered in order to ransom people from every people-group on earth (5:??). This is the Bride who was ransomed from every tribe, and tongue, and people, and nation (5:??). Chapter 5 introduced the drama as a story where the work had been finished (He was slain already) but the multitude of those He died to save had not yet come to Him. Chapter 19 looks forward to the day when every last one of those chosen to be redeemed has come to Jesus Christ.
So it is not that the Lamb has loved an unknown Bride, but that He has finally won the very Bride He knew—every soul the Father gave Him, Jesus will victoriously bring into His Kingdom. None will be lost. Not a single one whom He foreknew will fail to be upheld and preserved by His powerful grace. This doctrine, woven throughout Revelation’s drama; the doctrine of definite atonement, is what J.I. Packer was describing when he said,
Definite atonement is beautiful because it tells the story of the Warrior-Son who comes to earth to slay his enemy and rescue his Father’s people. He is the Good Shepherd who lays down his life for his sheep, a loving Bridegroom who gives himself for his bride, and a victorious King who lavishes the spoils of his conquest on the citizens of his realm. Definite atonement is powerful because it displays the glory of divine initiative, accomplishment, application, and consummation in the work of salvation. The Father sent the Son, who bore our sins in his body on the tree, and the Spirit has sealed our adoption and guarantees our inheritance in the kingdom of light.[i]
I pray, as we continue in these videos in our study of Revelation, from chapter 19 through to the end of the book, that not only will you love the display here of our Lord’s triumphant love for the people He intended to save, but that you will be strengthened by the knowledge of His saving love for you.