Bird's-eye view
In this section of the seven bowls, we are witnessing the final, intensified, and rapid-fire judgments of God upon covenant-breaking Jerusalem. These are not random acts of divine temper, but the meticulous fulfillment of covenant curses threatened centuries before in the law of Moses. The fourth bowl, poured out on the sun, represents a dramatic escalation of the corresponding fourth trumpet judgment. Where the trumpet brought darkness, the bowl brings a scorching, hellish heat. This is not about global warming in the 21st century; it is about the white-hot heat of God's holy wrath against apostasy, directed at the generation that rejected and crucified His Son.
The central lesson of this passage is found not in the plague itself, but in the reaction of those afflicted by it. Confronted with an undeniable and supernatural manifestation of God's power and judgment, the unregenerate heart does not soften. It does not break. It hardens. The men scorched by this fire do not fall on their faces in repentance; they stand up, shake their fists, and curse the very God who holds power over the plagues. This reveals the profound depth of human depravity. Apart from sovereign grace, even the very fires of judgment will not produce repentance, but only a more bitter and defiant blasphemy. The judgment exposes the heart for what it is, and for the ungodly, that heart is implacably hostile to God.
Outline
- 1. The Fourth Bowl: Covenantal Fire (Rev 16:8-9)
- a. The Angel's Action: A Bowl Poured on the Sun (Rev 16:8a)
- b. The Sun's Commission: To Scorch Men with Fire (Rev 16:8b)
- c. The Resulting Affliction: A Fierce, Scorching Heat (Rev 16:9a)
- d. The Hard-Hearted Reaction: Blasphemy Instead of Repentance (Rev 16:9b)
- e. The Ultimate Failure: Refusal to Give God Glory (Rev 16:9c)
Context In Revelation
The seven bowls of God's wrath in chapter 16 represent the climax of the judgments that have been unfolding throughout the book. They are parallel to, but more intense and complete than, the seven trumpets (Rev 8-9). While the trumpets announced judgments affecting a "third" of the earth, sea, or sky, the bowls are comprehensive. They are being poured out in rapid succession upon the "earth-dwellers," which in John's context refers to the land of Israel, and specifically the corrupt system of temple worship in Jerusalem that had made common cause with the beast of Rome. This is the final answer to the prayer of the martyrs under the altar, "How long, O Lord?" (Rev 6:10). The answer is, "No longer." The time for judgment has come, and these plagues are the final legal sentence being executed upon the great city, which is spiritually called Sodom and Egypt (Rev 11:8), just before her utter destruction in A.D. 70.
Key Issues
- The Relationship Between Trumpet and Bowl Judgments
- The Symbolic Nature of the Plague
- The Fulfillment of Deuteronomic Curses
- The Nature of a Hardened Heart
- Repentance and the Glory of God
- The Identity of the "Men" Being Scorched
The Fire This Time
When God brings judgment, He often uses the very things His creatures worship as the instruments of their demise. The Egyptians worshiped the Nile, and God turned it to blood. Here, in the final act of judgment against apostate Israel, God takes the sun, a universal symbol of life, light, and blessing, and turns it into a weapon of torment. The created order is not neutral; it serves the purposes of its Creator. When men refuse to honor the Creator, He can command the creation to turn on them.
This plague is a foretaste of Hell itself. It is a judgment of fire and heat, but the most striking thing about it is that it does not purify. It only hardens. This is the terrible truth about the wrath of God when it is poured out on the finally impenitent. It does not lead to a change of mind, but to a cementing of the will in its rebellion. The heat of this sun does not melt the heart in contrition; it bakes it into a brick of defiance. This is a judicial hardening, a giving over of men to the sin they have chosen. They loved darkness, and now they get fire. They refused the light of the Son of God, and so they receive the scorching of the sun in the sky.
Verse by Verse Commentary
8 And the fourth angel poured out his bowl upon the sun, and it was given to it to scorch men with fire.
The action is swift and decisive, part of the rapid sequence of final judgments. The fourth angel, in his turn, executes the divine will. His target is the sun. As we have seen, the bowl judgments are intensified versions of the trumpet judgments. The fourth trumpet caused a third of the sun to be darkened (Rev 8:12), a plague of darkness. But here, the effect is the opposite: a plague of intolerable light and heat. The sun is not diminished; its power is amplified for destruction. Notice the passive voice: "it was given to it." The sun has no authority of its own. It is an instrument, a tool in the hand of the sovereign God. God is commissioning a celestial body to execute a sentence upon earthly rebels. The "men" in view are the same ones who received the mark of the beast, the inhabitants of the covenant land who had rejected their Messiah and thrown in their lot with Caesar.
9a And men were scorched with fierce heat,
The effect of the judgment is exactly as intended. The heat is not a mild discomfort; it is a "fierce heat," a great scorching. While we need not look for meteorological records of a literal heatwave in Josephus's account of the Jewish War, the meaning is clear. This is a covenantal judgment, and we should look to the covenant lawsuit documents of the Old Testament to understand it. In the list of curses for covenant-breaking, Moses warned Israel centuries before: "The LORD will strike you with consumption and with fever and with inflammation and with fiery heat" (Deut 28:22). This is not a random natural disaster. This is the promised curse of the covenant coming to pass. The God who promised blessing for obedience also promised fiery judgment for apostasy, and He is a God who keeps His promises.
9b and they blasphemed the name of God who has the authority over these plagues,
Here we come to the heart of the matter. How do these men respond to this overwhelming display of divine power? Do they connect the dots between their sin and their suffering? Do they cry out for mercy? No, they blaspheme. They curse the name of God. And John makes it explicit that they knew exactly who was responsible. They blasphemed the God "who has the authority over these plagues." There was no atheism in these foxholes. They knew it was God, and they hated Him for it. Their suffering did not reveal a hidden righteousness; it revealed a hidden and now-not-so-hidden rebellion. True repentance takes responsibility. The hardened heart blames God. They are like a criminal on the rack who, instead of confessing, uses his last breath to curse the judge.
9c and they did not repent so as to give Him glory.
John concludes with the ultimate reason for their blasphemy. They refused to do the one thing that this judgment, in its terrible mercy, was calling them to do. They did not repent. And the purpose of repentance is stated plainly: "so as to give Him glory." This is the great divide in the universe. Either you repent and give God glory, or you rebel and give yourself glory, which is no glory at all. To give God glory is to acknowledge that He is right, just, and good in all His ways, even in His judgments. It is to agree with His verdict against you. It is to say, "You are righteous, O Lord, and your judgments are true. I am the sinner who deserves this wrath." But they would not do it. Their refusal to repent was a refusal to glorify God. They would rather be scorched in their self-righteousness than saved in His glory. This is the essence of damnation: a fixed, eternal, and resolute refusal to give God the glory He is due.
Application
We are tempted to read a passage like this and thank God that we are not like those men. But the seed of that same rebellion is in every one of our hearts. The difference between the saints in heaven and the men being scorched on earth is not that the saints were naturally better people. The difference is one word: grace.
This passage forces us to ask how we respond to the "heat" in our own lives. When God turns up the temperature through trial, affliction, or discipline, what is our first reaction? Is it to murmur, to complain, to question God's goodness, to subtly or not-so-subtly "blaspheme" His name by accusing Him of being unfair? Or is it to repent and give Him glory? Do we see our trials as an opportunity to agree with God about our sin and His holiness? Do we recognize His authority over every plague, every sickness, every financial hardship, every relational conflict?
The only way to endure the heat of God's holiness is to be clothed in the righteousness of Christ. On the cross, Jesus absorbed the full, unmitigated, scorching heat of God's wrath against our sin. He was scorched so that we might be spared. He endured the ultimate plague so that we might be brought into the ultimate paradise, where the sun will not strike us, nor any heat, for the Lamb in the midst of the throne will be our shepherd (Rev 7:16-17). The gospel is the only answer to the fourth bowl. We either take the heat ourselves, which will only harden us for an eternity of blasphemy, or we flee to the one who took the heat for us, and learn to repent and give Him glory.