Jackson Snyder's Revelation Uncloaked

Rev 10:1 And I saw another mighty angel coming down from heaven, wrapped in a cloud, with a rainbow over his head; his face was like the sun, and his legs like pillars of fire.

A very large and mighty angel descends to earth. He who was once a heavenly child saved from a red dragon and caught up has now returned. He comes with a cloud of witnesses, the ascended saints of God, those who held to the Word of God and the Testimony of Jesus to the very end (Rev 14:1ff). Now they descend with him. The angel is the personification of God's covenant with creation, as signified by the rainbow over his head. His face and legs have been described before, in 1:5 and 4:3. The Mighty Angel is the Son of God.

Rev 10:{2} He held a little scroll open in his hand. Setting his right foot on the sea and his left foot on the land, {3a} he gave a great shout, like a lion roaring.

The sea is a symbol of turmoil, confusion, danger. The Sea Monster (or Beast) of Revelation 13:1ff crawls out of the sea. The mighty Colossus has his foot on the sea, a symbol of final victory and the eventual defeat of the Sea Monster (which is the Roman Empire).

The Colossus sets another foot on the land. He has authority over the Land Monster (or Beast) (13:5-18) (which is the Emperor of Rome). He sets his feet upon both sea and land to demonstrate his ultimate power and kingship.

His size is such that every eye will behold the Mighty One of God and perceive his supremacy, though only John, one of the elect of God, sees him now. He roars like a lion; He is the Lion of Judah: a roaring of power. He will rule and does rule; and he makes his rule known through the prophecy of verse 7.

Dare our Mighty Angel, the Son of God, be compared to one of the seven wonders of the ancient world: the Colossus of Rhodes? Rhodes is an island situated just south of Patmos, where John was exiled. The Colossus of Rhodes was a statue of the naked young sun god Helios, 120 feet tall, and standing upon a 25 feet marble base. The Colossus was constructed around 292 BC to commemorate a military victory. He was crowned with sun rays. The huge statue must have been a most imposing figure; a fitting tribute to a god. John surely knew of the Colossus, although it had been destroyed a century earlier. We know it as one of the seven wonders of the ancient world.

Sabbath or Sunday?: All by coincidence? Of course not. The Roman Emperor Constantine (4th century) was a sun worshiper turned Christian. He was also the leader of the Christian Church. He made the rules; He made Christianity the religion of the empire. He did it by combining Roman paganism with church doctrine. And today, we have inherited many pagan practices in our faith, and especially those connected with Helios, the sun god. One practice has to do with Sabbath keeping.

Exo 20:8 Remember the Sabbath day, to keep it holy. 9 Six days shalt thou labour, and do all thy work: 10 But the seventh day is the sabbath of Yahweh thy God: in it thou shalt not do any work, thou, nor thy son, nor thy daughter, thy manservant, nor thy maidservant, nor thy cattle, nor thy stranger that is within thy gates: 11 For in six days Yahweh made heaven and earth, the sea, and all that in them is, and rested the seventh day: wherefore Yahweh blessed the sabbath day, and hallowed it.

Note that the seventh day is to be kept holy, not the first. Rome set that day, and still believers observe the first day of the week, Sun-day, Helios' day, as "the Christian Sabbath," and honor Jesus' birth on the Day of the Unconquered Sun (December 25). Do these practices indicate that Christians truly follow "the Commandments of God" and hold to "the Testimony of Jesus?" No. Besides keeping all the commandments, Jesus kept the Sabbath. Now, when Jesus returns, will he find True Faith on earth, or just religion?

Could the keeping of the Sabbath and biblical feasts be relevant for those end-time saints who are described as keeping "Word of God and Testimony of Jesus"? Many end-time movements teach that the answer is yes. I believe so, too -- perhaps essential. More and more believers are rediscovering the seventh-day Sabbath. Even this week, a new member of my church called to ask why she felt such conviction to hallow the seventh day. Does a day make a difference? The Word of God says it does, and maybe so does John's piling up of sevens in the Revelation. Speaking of sevens:

Rev 10:{3b} And when he shouted, the seven thunders sounded. {4} And when the seven thunders had sounded, I was about to write, but I heard a voice from heaven saying, "Seal up what the seven thunders have said, and do not write it down."

God responds to the roar of his angelic Lion with a roar of his own -- seven claps of thunder -- an affirmation of the Mighty Angel's authority. (The voice of God may always be interpreted by the prophet, for better or worse.) The heavenly interpreter admonishes John not to write the interpretation down. Nevertheless, the words of the thunders deal intrinsically with judgment and are interpreted by God's actions earthward; seven seals, seven trumpets, seven bowls and seven acts of wrath to follow.

1 Enoch 59:2. And there I saw the secrets of the thunder, and how when it resounds above in the heaven, the sound thereof is heard, and he caused me to see the judgements executed on the earth, whether they be for well-being and blessing, or for a curse according to the word of the Lord of Spirits.

There must not be written warning here; there must be no ambiguity. Those destined for judgment -- those who gratefully receive the mark of the beast -- will experience sudden wrath and still not know what's happening. "Let filthy be filthy still."

Rev 10:{5} Then the angel whom I saw standing on the sea and the land raised his right hand to heaven {6} and swore by him who lives forever and ever, who created heaven and what is in it, the earth and what is in it, and the sea and what is in it: "There will be no more delay, {7} but in the days when the seventh angel is to blow his trumpet, the mystery of God will be fulfilled, as he announced to his servants the prophets."

The raising of the right hand is explained as the ancient custom equated with today's handshake. It means to bind one's self to a contract. The raising of the hand is coupled with an oath -- "the mystery of God will be fulfilled." And the oath is made by the one who was the agent through which all things came to be (the Logos). This is a vital new covenant because it will culminate in

(3) the partnership of God and Logos, as it was in the beginning. It will require the power of both the creator and the intermediary (1 Tim 2:5) to get the job done.

No mainstream commentary has succinctly interpreted the meaning of the seven thunders. I mentioned before that the interpretation is not written to avoid ambiguity. Yet it is explicitly implied in the Mighty Angel's interpretation. The seven thunders mean the seven trumpets of judgments (which in turn symbolizes the other groups of seven). At the sounding of the seventh the mystery will be fulfilled, just as all the prophets foretold: the Day of the Lord is nigh! "There will be no more delay."

It is through this solemn covenant and its consummation that the mystery of God is made evident. That mystery is the "summing up of all things in Christ" (Eph 1:9-10). The two witnesses (11:3-19), Messianic Jews and converted Gentiles, are two important facets of the mystery (read Romans 11 again). Those Gentiles who are truly sealed in these end-times will be recognized by their willingness to work in unity with the Messianic Jews, and vice versa. The conjoint work is the sharing of the message of the end.

Rev 10:{8} Then the voice that I had heard from heaven spoke to me again, saying, "Go, take the scroll that is open in the hand of the angel who is standing on the sea and on the land."

The scroll is in the possession of the Mighty Angel, whom we identified with the Risen Christ. The scroll is the Revelation. It belongs to Jesus. It is The Revelation of Jesus Christ. The Heavenly Voice commands John to take it and make it his. The same voice that sealed the seven thunders here offers the scroll -- more evidence that the seven thunders are not sealed up after all.

Taking the scroll must have been an awesome assignment for little John, considering that the Angel was huge, having power over both sea and land, over the Roman Empire and its Emperor, over all time and creation.

Rev 10:{9} So I went to the angel and told him to give me the little scroll; and he said to me, "Take it, and eat; it will be bitter to your stomach, but sweet as honey in your mouth." {10} So I took the little scroll from the hand of the angel and ate it; it was sweet as honey in my mouth, but when I had eaten it, my stomach was made bitter. {11} Then they said to me, "You must prophesy again about many peoples and nations and languages and kings."

John commands the Mighty Angel, the Son of God, to give him the scroll, the vision, the vision which was to become a scroll or book, the Book of Revelation. (Other commentators see the scroll as the New Testament or the scroll mentioned in 5:1. But in John's time, there was no New Testament.) The Angel agrees, commanding him not only to take it, but eat it.

The taste is sweet because of the privileged position of the prophet as a witness to Heaven, meeting angels, hearing from God, doing God's specific will. But it is sickening because of the implications of its message: judgment, persecution, death, eternal death.

John is too involved in the whole process to turn back. His was to become an enigmatic household name for two thousand years. His vision fueled rebellions, justified migrations, inspired motion pictures. It gave reason to cults. "You must prophesy again to many people and nations...." Indeed, the Revelation brought this nation into being. (Study the history and doctrine of the Puritans and see if this isn't so.)

Ezekiel 2:{8} But thou, son of man, hear what I say unto thee; Be not thou rebellious like that rebellious house: open thy mouth, and eat that I give thee. {9} And when I looked, behold, an hand was sent unto me; and, lo, a roll of a book was therein; {10} And he spread it before me; and it was written within and without: and there was written therein lamentations, and mourning, and woe. 3:{1} Moreover he said unto me, Son of man, eat that thou findest; eat this roll, and go speak unto the house of Israel. {2} So I opened my mouth, and he caused me to eat that roll. {3} And he said unto me, Son of man, cause thy belly to eat, and fill thy bowels with this roll that I give thee. Then did I eat it; and it was in my mouth as honey for sweetness.