The Unmixed Cup of Judgment Text: Revelation 16:1-2
Introduction: The End of All Patience
We have come to a point in the book of Revelation where all the warnings have been given, all the trumpets have been blown, and all opportunities for repentance have been trampled underfoot. We are now at the final crescendo of God's wrath against the great apostate city, Jerusalem. This is not some far-flung future event for us; this is the historical account of God settling His accounts with the generation that crucified His Son. The voice we hear is not a whisper of warning, but a thunderous command of execution. God is done waiting.
Modern evangelicals, particularly those steeped in the imaginative scenarios of dispensationalism, have a tendency to read these passages as though they were a screenplay for a future disaster movie starring the Antichrist. But this is to rip the book out of its historical and covenantal soil. John was writing to first-century Christians about things that must "soon take place." The beast was Rome. The great harlot was apostate Jerusalem, who had gotten into bed with the beast. The final judgments described here are the historical events of the Jewish War, culminating in the utter demolition of the Temple and the city in A.D. 70.
The seven bowls of God's wrath are not parallel to the seven trumpets; they are the intensification and final consummation of them. The trumpets announced partial judgments, warnings in thirds, a final call to turn back. But the bowls are total. They are unmixed, undiluted wrath. This is the final horror falling upon the Jews in revolt, who had rejected their Messiah and cried out, "We have no king but Caesar!" In doing so, they had taken the mark of the beast, and now they were about to receive the wages of that allegiance.
We must understand this as a foundational principle: God's judgments in history are real. They are tangible, they are bloody, and they are just. And they serve as a permanent pattern for how God deals with covenant-breaking people. What happened to Jerusalem is a stark and terrifying warning to any nation, any church, any individual who would trifle with the living God.
The Text
Then I heard a loud voice from the sanctuary, saying to the seven angels, "Go and pour out on the earth the seven bowls of the wrath of God."
So the first angel went and poured out his bowl on the earth; and it became a loathsome and malignant sore on the people who have the mark of the beast and who worship his image.
(Revelation 16:1-2 LSB)
The Great Command of Execution (v. 1)
The chapter opens with a voice that brooks no argument.
"Then I heard a loud voice from the sanctuary, saying to the seven angels, 'Go and pour out on the earth the seven bowls of the wrath of God.'" (Revelation 16:1)
John hears a "loud voice" coming from the very heart of God's presence, the sanctuary or Temple in heaven. In the previous chapter, we were told that no one could enter the sanctuary until these seven plagues were finished (Rev. 15:8). This means the voice giving the command can be none other than God the Father Himself. This is a divine decree, a final sentence being handed down. The time for intercession is over. The time for judgment has come.
The command is given to the seven angels simultaneously. "Go." This indicates that these judgments will be poured out in rapid succession. This is not a slow burn; it is a flash flood of divine fury. The events of the Jewish War, from A.D. 66 to A.D. 70, were a compressed period of unimaginable horror, one disaster piling upon another with breathtaking speed. Josephus's account of the siege of Jerusalem reads like a historical commentary on these very chapters.
Notice what they are pouring out: "the seven bowls of the wrath of God." The Greek word for wrath here is thumos, which signifies a fierce, passionate anger. It is not the cold, detached displeasure of a distant deity; it is the hot, righteous fury of a spurned and betrayed husband. Israel was the covenant bride of Yahweh, and she had played the harlot with pagan Rome. This is the wrath of jealousy, the fury of holy love that has been profaned. And it is being poured out "on the earth," which in the context of Revelation consistently refers to the land, the land of Judea, the covenant land that was being defiled by its inhabitants.
The First Plague: Covenant Curses Made Manifest (v. 2)
The first angel does not hesitate. The judgment is immediate and specific.
"So the first angel went and poured out his bowl on the earth; and it became a loathsome and malignant sore on the people who have the mark of the beast and who worship his image." (Revelation 16:2 LSB)
The first bowl is poured out, and the result is a "loathsome and malignant sore." This should immediately ring a bell for anyone familiar with the Old Testament. This is not a random plague. This is a direct, explicit fulfillment of the covenant curses God had promised to Israel centuries before if they were to break His law. This judgment links them directly with Egypt, the nation from which God had delivered them. The sixth plague on Egypt was a plague of boils (Ex. 9:9-11).
But more pointedly, this was promised directly to Israel. In Deuteronomy, God lays out the blessings for obedience and the curses for disobedience. And what is one of those curses? "The LORD will smite thee with the botch of Egypt... with a sore botch that cannot be healed, from the sole of thy foot unto the top of thy head" (Deut. 28:27, 35). By rejecting Christ, apostate Israel had become the new Egypt, and God was now treating them accordingly. They had chosen Pharaoh over the true Passover Lamb, and so they would receive Pharaoh's plagues.
But notice who is afflicted. The sores fall specifically on "the people who have the mark of the beast and who worship his image." This is crucial. This is not an indiscriminate plague. God's judgments are always precise. This targets those who had made their allegiance with the Roman state and its emperor worship, against the claims of Christ. When the Jewish leaders stood before Pilate and shouted, "We have no king but Caesar!" (John 19:15), they were, in effect, receiving the mark of the beast on their foreheads. They were declaring their ultimate loyalty. They rejected the crown of thorns for the laurels of Rome.
The mark of the beast is a diabolical parody of the mark of God. The faithful were to bind the law of God on their foreheads and hands (Deut. 6:8), signifying that their thoughts and actions were governed by God's Word. The beast demands the same total allegiance. To take his mark is to think his thoughts and do his deeds. Those Jews who prided themselves on being free from graven images had in fact bowed down to the ultimate image, the deified Roman emperor, and had become idolaters of the first order. Their outward religiosity was a sham, and God was now making their inward corruption manifest in their outward bodies. The loathsome sore on the skin was a picture of the loathsome sin in the soul.
These sores that "cannot be healed" appear at the first bowl, but we see later that those afflicted are still suffering from them when the fifth bowl is poured out (Rev. 16:11). This is a persistent, gnawing judgment. It is the beginning of a final, agonizing end for the covenant-breaking nation.
Conclusion: Marks of Allegiance
This passage is not simply a historical curiosity. It sets a principle in stone for all time. There are only two ultimate loyalties, two ultimate marks of allegiance. You will either bear the seal of the living God on your forehead, or you will bear the mark of the beast. There is no neutral ground. You cannot serve two masters.
To be sealed by God means that your mind, your worldview, your thoughts, are being brought into conformity with the mind of Christ. It means your actions, your hands, are dedicated to building His kingdom. It means you have confessed with your mouth that Jesus is Lord, and not Caesar, not the state, not your own autonomous self.
To take the mark of the beast is to do the opposite. It is to allow your thinking to be shaped by the spirit of the age. It is to dedicate your hands to the service of a system that is in rebellion against God. It is to confess, either with your lips or with your life, that someone or something other than Jesus Christ is your ultimate authority. It is to cry, "We have no king but Caesar."
The first-century Jews made their choice, and they received the wages of that choice in the form of loathsome sores and the complete destruction of their world. The choice is set before us today just as starkly. Every law that is passed, every cultural mandate that is issued, every demand for conformity from the secular state is a demand to show our allegiance. Will we bow? Or will we stand?
The good news of the gospel is that for those who are in Christ, the wrath of God has already been poured out. It was poured into a cup, and Jesus drank that cup to the dregs on the cross. He took the full, unmixed fury of God's wrath against our sin upon Himself. He bore our plagues. He took our sores. Therefore, for us, there is now no condemnation. We have been sealed by His Spirit, marked as His own, and no judgment can touch us.
But for those who refuse this grace, for those who continue to worship the beast and his image, there is nothing left but a "certain fearful looking for of judgment, and fiery indignation" (Heb. 10:27). The bowls of God's wrath are not a relic of the past. They are a standing warning. The God who judged Jerusalem in A.D. 70 is the same God who sits on the throne today, and He will by no means clear the guilty.