J. The Seventh Seal (8:1-5)
J. THE SEVENTH SEAL (8:1-5)
John now returns to the seals. The final seal is opened. There is an impressive silence, which we cannot but think portends the End. But instead it begins a new series of visions heralded by angels with trumpets. This is typical of John’s method. He goes over the ground again and again, each time teaching us something new. There is more to the End than we can readily take in. Every series of visions brings out new facets of it.
1. The sixth seal was opened as far back as 6:12, so there has been quite an interval. At the opening of the seventh there was silence in heaven for about half an hour. Clearly it was a solemn and impressive moment. It is possible that the silence is connected with the offering of the prayers of the saints (vv.3-4, so Beasley-Murray) just as in 7:3 certain plagues were held back until the servants of God were sealed. The saints appear insignificant to men at large. But in the sight of God they matter. Even great cataclysms are held back while they pray. And the praises of angels give way to silence so that the saints may be heard. It is also possible that we should think of the silence as resulting from a sense of awe at the presence of God (cf. Hab. 2:20). He is about to launch severe judgments on people. All heaven remains silent.
2. The vision introduced by the opening of the seventh seal was that of the seven angels who stand before God. The definite article shows that a specific seven are in mind. Jewish writings speak of the seven who ‘present the prayers of the saints and enter into the presence of the glory of the Holy One’ (Tobit 12:15). Their names are Uriel, Raphael, Raguel, Michael, Saraqael, Gabriel and Remiel (1 Enoch 20:1ff.; Turner notes their close connection with God, implied in the -el ending of each name). John has other references to seven angels (v.6; 15:1,6-8; 16:1; 17:1; 21:9). But after this chapter they all refer to the angels who had the seven bowls introducing the seven last plagues, and it is uncertain whether they are the same seven. Standing before God and serving God mean much the same thing (cf. 1 Ki. 17:1; 18:15; 2 Ki. 3:14; 5:16; the Hebrew in all these cases means ’before whom I stand‘, but NIV has ’whom I serve’). To these angels are now given seven trumpets (’war horns’, Schonfield). Trumpets are often associated with the end-time in apocalyptic writings (cf. Mt. 24:31; 1 Cor. 15:52; 1 Thes. 4:16).
3. Before the angels blow their trumpets the prayers of the saints are offered. This is not an unrelated parenthesis. John means us to see that the prayers of God’s people are supremely important. Even the cataclysmic judgments which follow are held up till these prayers have been offered. Indeed in a sense it is these prayers that set the judgments in motion (v.5).
John not infrequently brings a new angel on the scene with the formula another angel. We have no means of identifying this one. Nor do we know who gave him much incense. The incense is closely connected with the prayers of all the saints, though it is not identical with them as it was in 5:8. It is offered with them, which we may take to symbolize the unity of the worship of heaven and earth. The use of the golden censer and of the altar of like material point us to the value of the prayers. Some hold that we should translate tais proseuchais ‘for the prayers’ rather than ’with the prayers’. Their thought is that our prayers are imperfect, but when they have been ’censed’ they ascend to God. It may be freely granted that our prayers are at best imperfect, but it is not a scriptural idea that an angel renders them fit to ascend to God. With the prayers is correct. A surprising number of translators render dosei (offer) by ‘mingle’ (RSV, Goodspeed, LB, Amplified, Twentieth Century), a rendering not easy to defend. The word means ’give’ and is rightly rendered ‘offer’ (AV, NEB, JB, Knox, Schonfield). For altar see on 6:9. That it is golden and thus valuable and that it is before the throne are ways of stressing the importance and value of the prayers of the saints.
4. The incense and the prayers went up before God. Notice that they went up from the angel’s hand, which is probably a way of saying that heaven and earth are at one in this matter. Prayer is not the lonely venture it so often feels. There is heavenly assistance and our prayers do reach God. It may be significant that there is mention of an altar in connection with this, for it signifies that there is something sacrificial in true prayer. We should not think of the angel as a mediator. Angels are fellow-servants (19:10; 22:9). But we are Christian only because of Christ’s sacrifice, and all our service (and our praying) is to be sacrificial.
5. It is not easy to see how the angel took the censer when he already had it (v.3). Perhaps the thought is that earlier he had it for purposes of intercession. Now he took it for purposes of judgment. He filled it with fire from the altar, and hurled it on the earth. The result was peals of thunder, rumblings, flashes of lightning and an earthquake (see on 4:5). The fire came from the very altar on which the prayers of the saints have been offered. This surely means that the prayers of God’s people play a necessary part in ushering in the judgments of God. What are the real master-powers behind the world and what are the deeper secrets of our destiny? Here is the astonishing answer: the prayer of the saints and the fire of God. That means that more potent, more powerful than all the dark and mighty powers let loose in the world, more powerful than anything else, is the power of prayer set ablaze by the fire of God and cast upon the earth’ (Torrance).