Revelation 14:13

Revelation 13 tells of the rise of the beast, the image the world is made to worship and the mark that controls daily life. Chapter 14 opens with the opposite scene, the Lamb standing on Mount Zion with the 144,000, the redeemed who are sealed as God’s own (Revelation 14:1–5). Our passage follows, with three angels who each bring a message for the whole earth, and after it comes the harvest and the vintage of the earth (Revelation 14:14–20). The three messages are God’s answer to the beast’s claim. They are a last call and a plain warning before the judgments that close the book.

Revelation was most likely written around AD 95, in the reign of the emperor Domitian, to churches in the Roman province of Asia. Christians there were pressed to honour the emperor as divine, and refusing could cost a person trade, standing, freedom or life. The empire announced its decrees in public for all to hear. Here God’s own decree rings out from the middle of the sky, over every earthly power. The believers who first read it found in it a warning against giving way, and an assurance that God would bring their persecutors to account.

John sees “another angel fly in the midst of heaven”. The Greek ángelos comes from a word meaning “to bring tidings”, so it means a messenger. It is used of heavenly angels, as here, and by implication of a human messenger such as a pastor. This one flies in mid-heaven, mesouránēma, the high point of the sky, where all the earth can see him. His message is public, it carries God’s authority, and the flight gives it speed and urgency.

What he carries is “the everlasting gospel”. Euangélion means a good message, good news, and the verb for preaching it, euangelízō, means to announce good news. The word for everlasting, aiṓnios, means eternal, lasting without limit of time. So the angel brings the same gospel God has always had, the saving news of a plan made before the foundation of the world (Ephesians 1:4), resting on the one John calls “the Lamb slain from the foundation of the world” (Revelation 13:8). Its heart is that “God so loved the world, that he gave his only begotten Son” (John 3:16). The beast’s power is short-lived and its message is a lie, and God’s good news outlasts them both.

The angel preaches “unto them that dwell on the earth”. In Revelation that phrase (katoikéō, to dwell, with gē, the earth) describes humanity as it lives apart from God, including those who have sided with the beast, and the gospel comes to these very people. Then the reach widens to “every nation, and kindred, and tongue, and people”, the fourfold list Revelation uses for the whole human race, as in the great multitude of Revelation 7:9. Here is God keeping the promise he made to Abraham, “in thee shall all families of the earth be blessed” (Genesis 12:3). Here too is the patience of the Lord, who is “not willing that any should perish, but that all should come to repentance” (2 Peter 3:9).

The first angel speaks “with a loud voice”, for everyone to hear, and gives three commands with one reason among them.

“Fear God” uses phobéō. The fear meant here is reverence and awe before God’s majesty and holiness, the right response of a creature to its Maker, and it leads to obedience and worship. Scripture calls it the beginning of knowledge and of wisdom (Proverbs 1:7, Proverbs 9:10). “Give glory to him” uses dídōmi, “to give”. To give God glory is to acknowledge his worth openly and to live in a way that honours his name. The Preacher sums up the whole duty of man in words close to this verse: “Fear God, and keep his commandments: for this is the whole duty of man. For God shall bring every work into judgment” (Ecclesiastes 12:13–14). Verse 12 will describe the saints as the ones who keep those commandments.

The reason is that “the hour of his judgment is come”. The hour is the time God has appointed, whatever its length, and the judgment is his reckoning with the earth, in which he sets right what is wrong, vindicates his people and condemns those who have given themselves to evil. The souls under the altar had asked, “How long, O Lord, holy and true, dost thou not judge and avenge our blood on them that dwell on the earth?” (Revelation 6:10). The angel answers that the hour has arrived, and the later chapters show the judgment carried out (Revelation 19, Revelation 20). Every person is accountable to the Creator, and the time to turn to him is now.

Last comes “worship him that made heaven, and earth, and the sea, and the fountains of waters.” Poiéō is the everyday verb “to make or do”, used here of God’s creating. Heaven, earth, sea and springs together name the whole of creation, and the wording recalls the fourth commandment: “the LORD made heaven and earth, the sea, and all that in them is.” The one who made everything, as the creation account of Genesis 1 tells, is the one with the right to our worship, and “the heavens declare the glory of God” (Psalm 19:1). The beast demands worship for a creature, and the angel calls the world back to its Maker.

The New Testament shows that this Creator is known in Christ. All things were made by the Word (John 1:3), and all things were created by the Son and for him (Colossians 1:16). The Father “hath committed all judgment unto the Son” (John 5:22), so the hour of judgment is his hour. Jesus gave the Father perfect glory: “I have glorified thee on the earth: I have finished the work which thou gavest me to do” (John 17:4). And heaven gives the Lamb the same worship it gives to God: “Worthy is the Lamb that was slain” (Revelation 5:12–13).

A second angel follows: “Babylon is fallen, is fallen, that great city”. The verb píptō simply means “to fall”, literally or figuratively. Its tense speaks of the fall as already done, though in John’s visions it is still to come, so the angel announces it as settled in God’s sight, and the doubled word makes the announcement solemn and sure. The words echo Isaiah’s cry over the old city: “Babylon is fallen, is fallen; and all the graven images of her gods he hath broken unto the ground” (Isaiah 21:9). Revelation gives the announcement again, in full, later on (Revelation 18:2–3).

The third angel follows “with a loud voice”, phōnḗ mégas, as public as the first. His warning in verses 9 to 11 is the sternest of the three: “If any man worship the beast and his image, and receive his mark in his forehead, or in his hand”. “Any man”, eí tis, puts the choice on each person.

Proskynéō, worship, means to bow down in homage. It is the response the first angel claimed for the Creator in verse 7, and here it is given to the beast. The verb is in the present tense, “if any man is worshipping”, which describes a settled and deliberate allegiance. The beast (Revelation 13:1–10) is the power, political and religious, that opposes God and demands the worship that belongs to God alone. Believers differ on who or what it is: some take it as an empire such as Rome, and others as a world power still to come. On every reading it stands against Christ and claims his honour. His image, eikṓn, a likeness, statue or representation, is set up for people to worship, and it enforces the beast’s will (Revelation 13:14–15).

The mark, cháragma, is a scratch or etching, a stamp worn as a badge of servitude. It names who owns a person and whom he serves, and it controls everyday life, since only those who bear it may buy or sell (Revelation 13:16–18). John’s first readers would have thought of the brands put on slaves and soldiers, and of the imperial seals on documents of trade. The forehead and the hand stand for the mind and the deeds. Moses told Israel to bind God’s words “for a sign upon thine hand, and they shall be as frontlets between thine eyes” (Deuteronomy 6:8), and the beast’s mark is a twisted copy of that devotion, claiming a person’s thoughts and actions for himself. Whether it marks what someone believes or what he does, the end is the same.

God’s people bear a different mark. They are “sealed with that holy Spirit of promise” (Ephesians 1:13–14), and they belong to the one whose name is “KING OF KINGS, AND LORD OF LORDS” (Revelation 19:16), who “hath delivered us from the power of darkness, and hath translated us into the kingdom of his dear Son” (Colossians 1:13–14). Those who refused the mark are later seen standing victorious, “them that had gotten the victory over the beast, and over his image, and over his mark” (Revelation 15:2). The warning comes ahead of time and with a loud voice, and that is itself a mercy. God tells the whole world what is at stake while there is still time to turn.

“The same shall drink of the wine of the wrath of God”. Those who drank Babylon’s wine now drink God’s. Two Greek words carry his anger in this verse. Thymós, “wrath”, means passion or hot anger, from thúō, a word that pictures breathing hard. It is used of the wrath of God, here and later in the chapter, and elsewhere of sinful human anger. “Indignation” translates orgē, God’s anger against sin.

The wine is “poured out without mixture”. Ákratos means undiluted, a negative prefix joined to a word for mixing, keránnymi. In those days wine was commonly mixed with water to weaken it, and God’s wrath is poured at full strength, with nothing to soften it. The prophets spoke of this cup: the cup in the hand of the LORD that the wicked of the earth must drink (Psalm 75:8), “the cup of his fury” that Jerusalem drank to the dregs (Isaiah 51:17), and “the wine cup of this fury” that Jeremiah was sent to make the nations drink (Jeremiah 25:15).

“Tormented” is basanízō, from básanos, to torture, and it means severe pain and anguish that is felt. “Fire and brimstone” recalls the day “the LORD rained upon Sodom and upon Gomorrah brimstone and fire from the LORD out of heaven” (Genesis 19:24), a destruction complete and beyond repair. The final judgment of Revelation 20 uses the same fire.

“And the smoke of their torment ascendeth up for ever and ever”. Rising smoke is the sign of a fire still burning. It recalls the morning after Sodom, when “the smoke of the country went up as the smoke of a furnace” (Genesis 19:28), and the burning of Edom, whose smoke “shall go up for ever” (Isaiah 34:10). “For ever and ever” is eis aiōnas aiōnōn, “unto the ages of the ages”, built on aiṓn, an age, and by extension perpetuity. It is the strongest way Greek has of saying “for ever”, and Revelation uses it of the glory and dominion that belong to God (Revelation 1:6).

“They have no rest day nor night.” Anápausis means an intermission, a break, relief from what wears a person down, and these people have none at any hour. Two verses later the voice from heaven promises rest to those who die in the Lord, and the two destinies stand side by side. Jesus offers that rest now to all who come to him: “Come unto me, all ye that labour and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest” (Matthew 11:28–30).

The verse ends by naming who suffers this: those “who worship the beast and his image, and whosoever receiveth the mark of his name.” The mark carries the beast’s name, so taking it is an open declaration of belonging to him. Each one has refused the call of the first angel and the Lamb of God, “which taketh away the sin of the world” (John 1:29), and pledged himself to a counterfeit king.

After the warning comes a word about God’s people: “Here is the patience of the saints: here are they that keep the commandments of God, and the faith of Jesus.” Hōde, “here”, points to the case in hand. In this setting, with the beast demanding worship and the angels warning of judgment, the endurance of the saints is seen. Revelation used the same words when the beast first rose: “Here is the patience and the faith of the saints” (Revelation 13:10).

The saints, hágios, are the holy ones, God’s people set apart for him. Their patience, hypomonḗ, is cheerful or hopeful endurance, constancy, staying faithful under pressure and suffering. James says that “the trying of your faith worketh patience” (James 1:2–4), and Paul that “tribulation worketh patience; and patience, experience; and experience, hope” (Romans 5:3–4). For the first readers, refusing the mark could cost them their trade and their freedom, and even their lives. Their endurance was the strength God gave them to stay loyal, knowing that he would vindicate them.

They “keep the commandments of God”. Tēréō means to guard by keeping an eye on something, and so to hold to a command and carry it out. Entolḗ is a charge or command given with authority. Keeping God’s commands is how love for him shows itself, as Jesus said, “If ye love me, keep my commandments” (John 14:15), and as John wrote, “hereby we do know that we know him, if we keep his commandments” (1 John 2:3–6). These are the very people the dragon made war on, those “which keep the commandments of God, and have the testimony of Jesus Christ” (Revelation 12:17). God’s grace in Christ bears fruit in an obedient, steadfast life, and that marks his people off from those who give way to the beast.

Then John hears “a voice from heaven saying unto me, Write”. The voice is God’s, and the command to write puts the promise on record for every believer after John. “Blessed are the dead which die in the Lord from henceforth”. Makários means blessed, happy, and the New Testament uses it even of God himself. It is the word of the Beatitudes (Matthew 5:3–12), and here heaven pronounces it over believers who die.

To die “in the Lord” is to die united to Christ by faith, belonging to him and holding to him to the end. That takes in the martyrs, whose deaths were very near for John’s first readers, and every true believer who dies trusting him, whatever the manner of death. Their life is safe in him: “For ye are dead, and your life is hid with Christ in God” (Colossians 3:3–4). “From henceforth”, apárti, says that the blessing holds from this time on, and that it is theirs as soon as they die.

“Yea, saith the Spirit”. The Holy Spirit adds his own word to the voice from heaven and confirms it. “That they may rest from their labours”. The verb is anapaúō, to rest, to be refreshed. Kópos, labours, comes from a word meaning “to cut”, and it means toil that wears down a person’s strength, and pains. The saints of verse 12 endured pressure, exclusion and persecution, and the dead in the Lord are done with all of it. “There remaineth therefore a rest to the people of God” (Hebrews 4:9–10), the rest that Hebrews 4 holds out to all who believe.

These verses show God speaking to the whole world before he judges it. His gospel goes to every nation, his warning is loud and plain, and he tells everyone what is at stake while there is time to turn. That is who God is: patient with sinners, just toward evil, and faithful to his people. The same verses give the saints a picture of themselves, holy ones who endure, keep his commandments and hold to the faith of Jesus at whatever cost Babylon exacts.

The passage ends on a blessing that heaven ordered to be written down. Those who die in the Lord rest from their labours, and what they did for him goes with them. If you grieve for someone who died trusting Christ, verse 13 speaks to you: the Spirit himself says that they are blessed and at rest. The rest that the beast’s worshippers lose for ever is the rest Christ gives to all who come to him.