Bird's-eye view
With the blast of the seventh trumpet, we arrive at a pivotal moment in the book of Revelation and, indeed, in the history of the world. This is not the end of the world, but rather the formal, heavenly declaration of its true ownership. The previous trumpets announced judgments upon apostate Israel, the land-dwellers who rejected their Messiah. This final trumpet announces the result of those judgments: the successful transfer of authority. The kingdom of this world, long usurped by the prince of the power of the air, has now officially and legally become the kingdom of our Lord and of His Christ. What follows is the response of heaven to this glorious announcement. The twenty-four elders, representing the entire church triumphant, fall down in worship, interpreting the significance of this regime change. They celebrate that God has taken up His great power, that the rage of the nations has been met with the rage of God, and that the time for vindicating the martyrs has come. The chapter concludes with a glorious vision of the heavenly temple being opened, revealing the Ark of the Covenant, signifying that the mercy seat of God is now accessible to all through the finished work of Christ.
This passage is the hinge upon which the rest of the book turns. It is the declaration of Christ's enthronement and the inauguration of His reign, a reign that will be progressively realized on earth as the gospel goes forth. The judgments described are not about the end of time, but about the end of the old covenant age, which made way for the establishment of the new covenant kingdom. This is the great eucatastrophe, the joyful turn in the divine comedy, where the apparent victory of the beast is revealed to be his ultimate undoing.
Outline
- 1. The Kingdom Proclaimed (Rev 11:15-19)
- a. The Trumpet Blast and the Great Proclamation (Rev 11:15)
- b. The Worship of the Vindicated Saints (Rev 11:16-17)
- c. The Rationale for Worship: Judgment and Reward (Rev 11:18)
- d. The New Covenant Temple Opened (Rev 11:19)
Context In Revelation
The seventh trumpet is the third and final woe (Rev 11:14), concluding the series of trumpet judgments that began in chapter 8. These judgments have been focused on the covenantal lawsuit against Jerusalem, the great city "where also their Lord was crucified" (Rev 11:8). This trumpet follows the ministry, death, and vindication of the two witnesses, who represent the prophetic testimony of the Old and New Covenants against a rebellious people. Their ascension into heaven (Rev 11:12) anticipates the victory that is now formally declared. The proclamation in verse 15 is the central theme of the entire book. Everything that has come before builds up to it, and everything that follows flows from it. The subsequent chapters will unpack the nature of the conflict between the kingdom of Christ and the kingdom of the dragon, but the outcome has already been decided and announced here. This is the heavenly perspective on the events surrounding the death and resurrection of Christ and the subsequent destruction of Jerusalem in A.D. 70, which marked the definitive end of the old covenant order.
Key Issues
- The Present Reality of the Kingdom
- The Meaning of "Begun to Reign"
- The Judgment of the Dead as Vindication
- The Identity of "Those Who Destroy the Earth"
- The Symbolism of the Opened Temple and the Ark
- Preterist vs. Futurist Interpretation
The Kingdom Has Come
One of the central errors in modern eschatology is the persistent tendency to postpone the kingdom. We are taught to think of Christ's reign as something that will only begin when He returns in the future. But this passage, along with many others, demolishes that notion. The loud voices in heaven are not expressing a future hope; they are stating a present reality. "The kingdom of the world has become..." This is a done deal. The verb is in the aorist tense, indicating a completed action. When did this happen? It happened when Jesus of Nazareth rose from the dead and ascended to the right hand of the Father. At that moment, He was given all authority in heaven and on earth (Matt 28:18). He was installed as King on Zion, God's holy hill (Ps 2:6). The seventh trumpet does not cause this to happen; it announces that it has happened. This is the formal, public declaration in the heavenly court that the usurpation of Adam, which was continued by the rulers of this world, is now over. The rightful King has taken His throne, and the rest of human history is simply the outworking of that established fact.
Verse by Verse Commentary
15 Then the seventh angel sounded, and there were loud voices in heaven, saying, “The kingdom of the world has become the kingdom of our Lord and of His Christ, and He will reign forever and ever.”
The seventh trumpet sounds, and the response is not another plague on the earth, but a proclamation from heaven. This is the climax. The "loud voices" belong to the heavenly host, the unfallen angels, who declare the central reality of the new covenant age. Notice the singular: "the kingdom of the world." The world has one ultimate ruler. For a time, it was ruled by the "god of this age" (2 Cor 4:4), but that lease has expired. The ownership has been transferred. It has become the possession of "our Lord" (the Father) and "of His Christ" (the anointed Son). This is the fulfillment of the promise in Psalm 2. The Father has given the nations to the Son as His inheritance. And this reign is not temporary; it is eternal. "He will reign forever and ever." This is the formal establishment of Daniel's fifth kingdom, the stone cut without hands that crushes all other kingdoms and grows into a mountain that fills the whole earth (Dan 2:35, 44).
16-17 And the twenty-four elders, who sit on their thrones before God, fell on their faces and worshiped God, saying, “We give You thanks, O Lord God, the Almighty, who is and who was, because You have taken Your great power and have begun to reign.
The twenty-four elders, who represent the whole company of the redeemed from both old and new covenants, respond to the proclamation with worship. They fall prostrate, which is the posture of ultimate submission and adoration. Their worship is first and foremost thanksgiving. They thank the "Lord God, the Almighty," the one who has all power and authority. They identify Him as the one "who is and who was." Astute readers will notice something missing. In earlier passages (Rev 1:4, 8), the formula was "who is and who was and who is to come." The "who is to come" is dropped here because, in a significant sense, He has now come. He has come in judgment and in power. The reason for their thanksgiving is that God has "taken" His great power and "begun to reign." This does not mean God was not sovereign before. Of course He was. But it means He has now actively taken up His power to intervene in history, to depose the rebels, and to install His Son as the mediatorial King of the world.
18 And the nations were enraged, and Your rage came, and the time came for the dead to be judged, and to give reward to Your slaves, the prophets and the saints and those who fear Your name, the small and the great, and to destroy those who destroy the earth.”
The elders now unpack the meaning of this new reign. First, it means conflict. The enthronement of Christ enrages the nations. As Psalm 2 predicted, the kings of the earth set themselves against the Lord's Anointed. But their rage is met with God's rage. His wrath has come, not as a future eschatological event, but as a historical reality in the judgments poured out on the Roman and Jewish world that culminated in A.D. 70. Second, it is the time for the dead to be judged. This is not the Great White Throne judgment at the end of time. This is the answer to the cry of the martyrs under the altar, "How long, O Lord...?" (Rev 6:10). This judgment is their vindication. Their blood is being avenged. At the same time, it is the time to reward His servants. The prophets, the saints, all who fear His name, their faithfulness is now publicly honored. Third, it is the time to "destroy those who destroy the earth." In the context of Revelation, the "earth" is frequently used to refer to the land of Israel. The ones destroying the land were the apostate Jewish leaders, whose rebellion against God brought covenantal curses and ultimately Roman destruction upon their own nation. God is destroying the destroyers.
19 And the sanctuary of God which is in heaven was opened, and the ark of His covenant appeared in His sanctuary, and there were flashes of lightning and sounds and peals of thunder and an earthquake and a great hailstorm.
The scene culminates with a vision of the heavenly reality behind all this. The true sanctuary, of which the earthly temple was just a shadow, is thrown open. The veil is torn. And what is revealed? The Ark of His Covenant. In the old covenant, the Ark was hidden in the Holy of Holies, seen only once a year by the high priest. It represented the very presence of God, the seat of mercy founded on law. For it to be openly visible means that access to God's presence is no longer restricted. The way into the holiest of all has been made manifest through the blood of Christ. The heavenly mercy seat is available to all who will come. The accompanying signs, lightning, thunder, earthquake, hail, are standard biblical phenomena indicating a theophany, a powerful manifestation of God's presence. They are signs of both salvation and judgment. For those who embrace the new covenant, the opened temple is a glorious invitation. For those who cling to the old, obsolete order, it is a terrifying storm of judgment.
Application
The message of the seventh trumpet is a potent antidote to the fearful, pessimistic, and retreatist mindset that plagues so much of the modern church. We are not on the losing side of history, waiting to be rescued from a world that is spiraling into the abyss. We are on the winning side. The kingdom of the world has already become the kingdom of our Lord and of His Christ. Jesus is reigning now. He is currently putting all His enemies under His feet, and He is doing it through the faithful proclamation of the gospel and the obedient lives of His people.
This means our posture in the world should be one of confident optimism. Not a naive optimism that ignores the reality of sin and opposition, but a robust, blood-bought optimism rooted in the fact that the decisive battle has already been won. The nations may rage, but God scoffs at them from His throne. Our job is not to cower in fear, but to live as loyal subjects of the enthroned King. We are to give thanks, knowing that God has taken up His great power. We are to be faithful, knowing that the time for our reward and vindication is secure. And we are to be bold, knowing that the way into the very presence of God has been thrown wide open for us. We do not approach a hidden God behind a thick veil; we come boldly to a throne of grace, invited in by the one who reigns forever and ever.