Re: Religious Pron: Book of Rev (21 of?); Ch 15, The Cups of Wrath

Last time, in Chapter 14, we talked about The Grapes of Wrath. Now that those grapes have been harvested and pressed, it’s all about the Cups of Wrath.

Rev 15:1
“I saw in heaven another great and marvelous sign: seven angels with the seven last plagues—last, because with them God’s wrath is completed.”

The end of God’s wrath is very much like the beginning.

If you’ve been keeping track through the 7 Seals and the 7 Trumpets, so far we’ve had 4 Horsemen, one bloody altar, an earthquake, a giant abyss, two locust plagues of Parthian-looking cavalry, and some suspiciously ‘volcanic’ destruction.

If this didn’t get an ancient’s attention, I’m not sure what would.

And now, in Revelation Chapter 15, we get some more suspiciously ‘volcanic’ destruction:

Rev 15:2
“And I saw what looked like a sea of glass glowing with fire, and standing beside the sea, those who had been victorious over the beast.”

Standing beside a sea of glass glowing with fire, at Kilauea

In Iceland

At Mt. Etna

One notable thing in Chapter 15 is that the Temple in Heaven is still operable and smoking, and the Law is still there in the ark. Just like it was a few chapters ago:

Rev 11:19
“Then God’s temple in heaven was opened, and within his temple was seen the ark of his covenant.”

And apparently, it was still being used by folks in Heaven during John of Patmos’s day. But for what?

Rev 15:8
“…and no one could enter the temple until the seven plagues of the seven angels were completed.”

That’s why I’m so curious about the functionality of the Temple in those first crazy years after Jesus’s D&R. We know the Jews saw the Temple in the same light they had always seen it. Business and sacrifices went on as usual for at least 40 more years. For them, Jesus was just another guy who came and went.

But how did the very earliest Jewish-Christians, and later Early Christians, view that same Temple? If the Old Covenant was replaced with the New Covenant, are the Heavenly tablets of Moses John speaks of just historical memorabilia? John makes a very specific point of saying they are still there, in Rev 11:9 and here:

Rev 15:5
“After this I looked, and I saw in heaven the temple—that is, the tabernacle of the covenant law—and it was opened.”

That’s fascinating to me.

John speaks of the Temple in Heaven but says nothing of the Temple on earth. That leads me to believe that Revelation was written after 70 AD, the year the Romans destroyed the earthly Temple. But John and his community still see the Heavenly version of the Temple as the home of God’s court, and the abode of his presence, and the command center for Judgement and the End Times.

The point being, John doesn’t just speak of ‘God in Heaven.’ He speaks of ‘the Temple in Heaven.’ It was still extremely important to him, Jesus or no Jesus. And although there’s still no Temple on earth to this day, some Jews still hold Passover Sacrifice near the Temple Mount where it once stood.

Who brought the mint jelly and hummus?

Next, in Chapter 16, God brings the final pain.

Rev 16:1
“Then I heard a loud voice from the temple saying to the seven angels, “Go, pour out the seven bowls of God’s wrath on the earth.”

“I know they disobeyed you yet again, but God, are you Ok?”
“Naw, man. I’m pretty f*****n far from Ok.”

It’s time to get medieval on humanity’s axx.

The first bowl of wrath puts festering sores on those marked by the Beast. And the second and third bowls turn the seas and rivers to blood…suspiciously ‘volcanic’ activity, again.

Kilauea in Hawaii. Seas and rivers of blood.

The fourth bowl scorches people with the Sun and the fifth bowl darkens the throne of the Beast.

So far, that’s five bowls of grapey wrath, but not one mention of nature’s candy.

Next, the sixth bowl opens the way for a mysterious invader. Maybe, those nasty red, yellow, and blue Parthians who defeated Rome 50ish years earlier, fighting over Armenia.

Rev 16:12
“The sixth angel poured out his bowl on the great river Euphrates, and its water was dried up to prepare the way for the kings from the East.”

But that’s not all. The sixth bowl also releases three frogs from the mouth of the Dragon, the Land Beast, and the Sea Beast. Their job is to gather the nations of the world at the hill of Megiddo, aka Har Megiddo, aka Armageddon, for the final battle, coming up in Chapter 19.

The Hill of Megiddo, with its commanding view of the Jezreel Valley. Twenty-two destroyed ancient cities, all stacked on top of each other. Imagine having your city burned to the ground every 100 years for two millennia. No wonder it was predicted as a future battle site.

The beautiful, and fertile, Jezreel Valley. Own Megiddo, own this valley.

Megiddo has been a popular battlefield forever, and there’s been documented fighting there since Judges. Note that for all of history, any army going north or south in the Levant had to go through Megiddo.

Judges 1:27
“But Manasseh did not drive out the people of…Megiddo and their surrounding settlements, for the Canaanites were determined to live in that land.”

The latest serious fighting there was in WW1, between the Brits and the Turks/Germans.

And finally, God’s wrath is complete with the seventh bowl, which delivers yet another earthquake, the likes of which no man has ever seen, including 100 lb hailstones from Heaven. Ouch.

Rev 16:10
“The great city split into three parts, and the cities of the nations collapsed. God remembered Babylon the Great and gave her the cup filled with the wine of the fury of his wrath.”

A church damaged in a Roman earthquake, with fallen rubble on the street.

A Roman fortress cracked and damaged by an earthquake.

Earthquake rods installed in a Roman building.

A 300 lb block of ice, for comparison to a 100 lb hailstone.

So that’s it for God’s wrath; seven Seals, seven trumpets, and seven cups of wrath.

All that’s left to do is defeat the bad guys and render final judgement on humanity. I can hardly wait to see who wins, and if our species makes it out alive. There are no guarantees. Just ask these guys.

And that’s where we’ll continue, next time. Till then, hot chicks.

Fordtunate Son

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Dec 19, 2024, 1:12 PM

It's everything, including the 10.

I don’t think it’s ever come up on the board as a specific discussion point. It’s a big deal, with a lot of implications for both Judaism and Christianity.

For the Jews, the Law is everything that God commanded us to do. They reckon that as 613 commandments. Some are given directly by God and some are inspired by God. For instance, commandment #1 (in chronology) is right up front in Genesis, way, way before Moses.

Gen 1:28
“God blessed them and said to them, “Be fruitful and increase in number…”

That’s not a request, that’s a direct order from God. And the 613 commandments cover all sorts of stuff…like not walking too far on the Sabbath, Saturday, because God said not too.

Exo 16:29
"Behold, the Lord has given you the sabbath…each man shall stay put, and not leave his place on the seventh day."

The Jews figure ‘staying put’ means not moving about more than ½ a mile form where you are, by foot of course. Riding a bike or driving a car is “work,’ which is also prohibited on the Sabbath.

And of course, breaking any of these 613 commandments is a sin against God. Now, the Jews realize that avoiding this is all but impossible, which ties into their view of sin. You do your best, but there’s no possible way you’re going to succeed in following all 613 all the time. Plus, a lot of the 613 have to do with the Temple, so they can’t be kept until the Temple is rebuilt.

So they equate sin and forgiveness to washing your clothes; it’s a never-ending process. Even if I’m not trying, my clothes get smokey if I walk past a bar, or maybe mud splashes up from a car on the road, or I drop crumbs on my shirt. Not all my fault, or my intent, but they get dirty nevertheless. So, I always have to wash them, eternally. They make a pretty strong distinction for intentional sin vs. unintentional sin.

And despite God being omnipotent, even he can’t forgive a you for a sin you commit against another person. Only THEY can forgive you for that, and you have to ask them for it. God can only watch and wait.

“According to some sources, sins between people are considered more severe than sins between man and God. Only after making sincere efforts to reconcile with the person wronged does one seek forgiveness from God. If the person wronged is unwilling to forgive after sincere attempts, Jewish law suggests asking them three times in the presence of witnesses. If they still refuse, the responsibility shifts to them, and the sinner is considered absolved in the eyes of God.”

One huge difference between Judaism and Christianity is that in Judaism there is no concept of Original Sin. Man is born pure (because he is the creation of a pure God) and lives by his choices and his obedience, though we are inclined to make bad choices. But again, it’s only an inclination, not a prior condition.

Gen 8:21
”…every inclination of the human heart is evil from childhood.”

But back to the Law.

So some of these Commandments were given long before Moses and Mt. Sinai – back to the time of Adam and Eve. Of course, they’re all Oral at that point, coming from the mouth of God, and passed on by the mouth of man. Long before Moses there was a prohibition on murder, and other wrongs. As far back as Noah:

Gen 9:5
“I will demand your blood, for [the taking of] your lives…He who spills the blood of man, by man his blood shall be spilt; for in the image of God He made man."

By the time the Children of Israel get into the desert, God is ready to give them a lot more commandments…and not just ten. The whole back half of Exodus is filled with them. And, there are others in Lev, Num, and Deut.

It was a lot to remember, but Moses took it all in, orally, then came down the mountain, then wrote it all down, himself, first:

Ex 24:3
“When Moses went and told the people all the Lord’s words and laws, they responded with one voice, ‘Everything the Lord has said we will do. Moses then wrote down everything the Lord had said…Then he took the Book of the Covenant and read it to the people. They responded, “We will do everything the Lord has said; we will obey.”

So they got a huge amount of Law, orally FIRST. Then they had a ritual with The Book of the Covenant that Moses wrote, and then he went back up to see God.

Ex 24:8
“Moses then took the blood, sprinkled it on the people and said, “This is the blood of the covenant that the Lord has made with you in accordance with all these words.”

“Moses and Aaron, Nadab and Abihu, and the seventy elders of Israel went up and saw the God of Israel. Under his feet was something like a pavement made of lapis lazuli, as bright blue as the sky. But God did not raise his hand against these leaders of the Israelites; they saw God, and they ate and drank.”

THEN God invites Moses up again to get the stone tablets. And not necessarily of just the first 10 commandments. It just says “commandments.” It might have been all the ones he previously gave, too, or more.

Ex 24:12
“The Lord said to Moses, “Come up to me on the mountain and stay here, and I will give you the tablets of stone with the law and commandments I have written for their instruction.”

So God gives Moses another raft of commandments…about 6 chapters in Exodus alone. It took God 40 days and 40 nights to pass it all along to Moses.

While Moses was up there, the people make a calf, God sends him down, Moses got pixxed, broke the tablets, and had to back to get replacements.

Ex 34:1
“The Lord said to Moses, “Chisel out two stone tablets like the first ones, and I will write on them the words that were on the first tablets, which you broke.”

Now traditionally, it’s been understood to be just the 10 Commandments on those two tablets. But that’s not what God said. He said ‘I will write on them the words that were on the first tablets,’ which goes back to, ‘I will give you the tablets of stone with the law and commandments I have written for their instruction,’ which was a lot more than 10, but less than 613, at that point. (Because the Lev, Num, and Deut commandments happened afterwards.)

In fact, there are three versions of the 10 Commandments in the Bible. One in Ex 20:2, a pretty different one in Ex 34:11, and one in Deut 5:6 that is very similar to Ex20:2

In summary:

1.A ton of Oral laws before Ex 24, which were written down by Moses himself in The Book of the Covenant
2.Then stone tablets inscribed by God in Ex 24 to Ex 31
3.Then everything else in Lev, Num, and Deut.

Plus, everything else since then, to make up The Law. A whole lot of stuff.

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Religious Pron: Book of Rev (21 of?); Ch 15, The Cups of Wrath