This at once distinguishes them from the heavenly worshipers; there is no
temple there; the Lord God Almighty and the Lamb are the temple. He that
sits on the throne tabernacles over these, as once over the tabernacle They
are not only as Israel in the courts or the nations in the world: they have
a priest's place in the world's temple. The millennial multitudes are
worshipers; these priests. As Anna, the daughter of Phanuel, ever in the
temple itself, they have always access to the throne. But they had
blessings under the Lamb also, to whom they alike ascribe their
salvation-the good Shepherd cast out, and who had passed through
tribulation Himself, also so great, would feed them; they would not hunger
any more or thirst any more, as they had often done; nor should persecution
or tribulation reach them. The Lamb, as known in this transitional time,
but exalted in the throne, would feed them and lead them to living
fountains of water. It is not, as to us, the promise of a well of water,
springing up into everlasting life, and flowing out as a river; but they
would be fed, refreshed, and perfectly cared for by the Lamb's grace whom
they had followed; and God Himself would wipe all tears from their eyes.
They would have the consolations of God, worth all the sorrows they had
passed through. But their blessings are consolations, not proper heavenly
joy. They are thus a class apart, distinct from the elders or heavenly
saints, and distinct from millennial saints who will never see tribulation,
having a known position fixed in grace before God. It is a new revelation
as to those passing through the great tribulation. The 144,000 of chapter
14 are a similar class from among the Jews, coming out of their special
tribulation.
Again, divine interest in the saints, brought out into action by the
effectual intercession of the great High Priest, brings down judgments on
the world. For those under the altar there was no intercession; they were
perfected, having been rejected and slain like Christ. There are saints
upon the earth who yet need this intercession, so that their cry in their
infirmity should be heard and answered. The smoke of the incense came up
with the prayers of the saints. The great mediator took of the fire off the
altar, put it into the censer, and cast it on the earth. The intercession
turned into judgments in the answer, and the signs of God's power were
manifested, and subversion of order on earth followed-voices, thunderings,
lightnings (as when the throne was set), and an earthquake.
Then follow specific judgments, on the signal being given from above. They
fell on the Roman earth, the third part of the earth. (See chap. 10:4.)
First, judgment from heaven, hail and fire; and violence or destruction of
men; on earth blood: the effect was the destruction of the great ones in
the Roman earth, and of all general prosperity. Next, a great power, as the
judgment of God, was cast into the mass of peoples- still, I apprehend, in
the Roman earth; for destruction of men, and all that belonged to their
subsistence and commerce followed in those limits. Next, one that should
have been a special source of light and order in government fell from his
place, and corrupted the moral sources of popular motives and feelings-
what governs and sways the people so as to characterise them. They became
bitter, and men died of it. The last of these four plagues falls on the
governing powers, and puts them out in their order, as from God: all in the
limits of the Roman earth. This closed the general judgments, subverting
and producing disaster and confusion in the Roman earth, where the power of
evil, as against the saints, was.
Woe (specially on those who had their settled place on earth, in contrast
with the heavenly calling, and who were unawakened and unmoved by the
judgments on the earth, but clung to it in spite of all as their home,) is
then announced. Threefold woe! The term "dwellers on," or "inhabiters of,"
the earth, has not yet been used, save in the promise to Philadelphia and
the claims of the souls under the altar: for both of these were in contrast
with such. After all these dealings of God, they are a distinct and
manifested class, and spoken of, in what passes on the earth, as such.
Against this perversely unbelieving class the earthly judgments of God are
now directed: the first, against the Jews; the second, against the
inhabitants of the Roman earth; the last, universal.
