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Him which is, and which was, and which is to come, and from the seven spirits which are
before the throne, and from Jesus Christ". Here is heaven's supreme court. "The
judgment shall sit", and it is because of the solemnity of that long-deferred judgment that
heaven ceases as it were to breathe in dreadful sympathy and anticipation.
Before the seven angels sound their trumpets, another angel steps forward and by his
action indicates the character of the impending judgments. They are TEMPLE
judgments.
The sixth seal left us certainly at the throne, and the close of chapter 7: speaks of the
throne, but that is not the case in chapter 8: Even the formula is altered. The seven
angels are not said to stand before the throne, but simply before God. Further, it is not
true exposition to draw a severe line between "throne" and "temple", for Rev. 16: 17
reads, "And the seventh angel poured out his vial into the air; and there came a great
voice out of the temple, from the throne". The Vatican Manuscript, Lt., and Tr. all
agree to this reading, "out of the temple from the throne", which unites throne and temple
together. The very passage before us does the same thing:--
"And another angel came and stood at the altar, having a golden censer: and there was
given him much incense, that he should offer it with the prayers of all saints upon the
golden altar which was before the throne."
The throne is in the temple, and cannot be severed from it. Unlike all other kings the
Lord unties priesthood and kingship together. The testimony of Zech. 6: 13 is fatal to
the conception of a clear cut distinction between throne and temple in the Revelation:--
"He shall sit and rule upon His throne; and He shall be a priest upon His throne."
Isaiah's vision, as recorded in chapter 6:, links the throne with the temple:--
"In the year that King Uzziah died I saw also the Lord sitting upon a throne, high and
lifted up, and His train filled the temple. . . . mine eyes have seen the King. . . . a live
coal from off the altar."
Here again the intentional linking of throne and temple, king and priest, will be
recognized, especially when we remember Uzziah's act. He attempted to unite in himself
kingship and priesthood, and for his temerity he was smitten with leprosy. In the year
that the king died, Isaiah had a vision of the true and only Priest-King.
As the Priest-King, the Lord Jesus appears before us in the opening vision of
Revelation, and as the Priest-King He will rule and reign. When we read of one who
walks in the midst of the seven golden candlesticks, we see a priest. When we read of his
golden girdle, and his clothing, we read of the symbol robes of a priest.
What is true of the opening of this seventh seal is also true of the sounding of the
seventh trumpet. Rev. 11: 15-19 records the sounding of the seventh trumpet, and when
that trumpet sounds:--