Revelation 11
20 November 2024
Chapter 7
Lawrence R. Farley, The Apocalypse of St. John: A Revelation of Love and Power, The Orthodox Bible Study Companion (Chesterton, IN: Ancient Faith Publishing, 2011).
Patrick Henry Reardon, Revelation: A Liturgical Prophecy (Yonkers, NY: St. Vladimir’s Seminary Press, 2018), 53.
Fr. Patrick Reardon.
The final preservation of God’s elect was foreshadowed in their deliverance at the time of the fall of Jerusalem in A.D. 70.
This sealing with the mark of the true Paschal Lamb fulfilled the promise contained in that earlier marking of Israel with the sacrificial blood of its type (Ex 12:21–23). Both Ezekiel and Exodus are important for the understanding of this seal. Ezekiel’s reference was to the fall of Jerusalem in 587 BC, of which everyone was aware who saw the fall of Jerusalem in AD 70. The passage in Exodus 12 had to do with the last of the ten plagues visited upon Egypt, the slaying of the firstborn sons. This sealing in Revelation, then, involves a new Exodus, in which God’s people will be delivered, not left to share in the sin of the earthly Jerusalem.
Fr. Lawrence Farley: What is this seal? The image is drawn from Ezekiel 9. In this passage, angels were to slay all in Jerusalem that rebelled idolatrously against Yahweh. But before they began their dreadful task, one angel went through the city and, at the divine command, put “a mark” (in Hebrew a tau) on all who were faithful (Ezek. 9:4). To be thus marked on the forehead is to enjoy the protection of God and an immunity from coming judgment….
This time of great tribulation seems to last throughout the age, for in Matthew 24:29 the Second Coming is said to occur “immediately after the tribulation of those days.” The parallel version of this verse in Luke 21:24 seems to confirm this, for it describes what Matthew refers to as “great tribulation” as a time of “great distress upon the land … [the people] will fall by the edge of the sword and be led captive into all nations; and Jerusalem will be trampled underfoot by the Gentiles until the times of the Gentiles be fulfilled”—that is, until the end of the age. Even the original prophecy of Daniel 12 states that the “time of tribulation” will be followed by the resurrection of the dead, when “many of those who sleep in the dust will awake” (Dan. 12:2).
It would seem then that in Matthew 24 the “great tribulation” is the age-long time of suffering for Israel that began with the destruction of the Temple in AD 70…
This understanding of “the great tribulation” (7:14) as the suffering of the Church throughout the age explains too the difference in the two crowds mentioned in this chapter. In 7:1–8, John receives a vision of the Church on earth, sealed and protected by God in preparation for their entering the final time of conflict. It is the Church of the final days. In 7:9–17, however, John sees a vaster multitude. This crowd comprises, not just the Church of the final days, but the Church gathered throughout all the centuries, coming from “the great tribulation,” the age-long struggle with the world. Unlike the former crowd, this multitude is vast beyond counting, stretching into the horizons of heaven. It is the Church glorified at last, fresh from its victorious struggle, an overwhelming testimony to the power of God.
