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Eureka

AN EXPOSITION OF THE APOCALYPSE
Sixth Edition, 1915
By Dr. John Thomas (first edition written 1861)

 

 

Chapter 4

Section 1 Subsection 2

The First Voice as of a Trumpet


 
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A door being opened in the heaven when John was looking, a voice issued forth from the opening, and addressed him. He tells us that the voice was identical with "that first voice which he heard as of a trumpet speaking with him." This first voice is noted in ch. i. 10. It was a loud trumpet-like voice, and he heard it when "in spirit." In all this, John was a dramatic person; or, one through whom was represented in action certain things not narrated. When in Patmos, and about to behold something pertaining to "the Day of the Lord," he says he was "in spirit." This is equivalent to saying that, when he shall behold the reality of the similitude he saw in spirit, he will also be "in spirit"; which likewise intimates by implication, that he will have previously risen from among the dead and be spirit. The first voice, then, he heard behind him as the loud sound of a trumpet, was a symbolical voice of the seventh trumpet period, which will awake him from his death-sleep; for it is under the seventh, which is also the last, that the dead are raised, the prophets and saints are rewarded, the day of the Lord is introduced, and the Satan elected from the heaven, bound hand and foot, and shut down in the bottomless profound there to remain for the thousand years ensuing (xi. 18).

Now, in John having referred us in ch. iv. 1, to the first voice of ch. i. 10, it was equivalent to telling us, that the first and second hearing of the same voice related to the same epoch, or point of time. They both relate to the seventh trumpet period; and as John "turned to see" in the first instance, and "looked" and ascended in the other, the vision of the Son of Man, and the vision of the thrones, the elders, and the living ones, are both representative of things destined to come to pass after the advent of Christ and the resurrection of the saints. The apocalyptic Son of Man is the Stone-Power in manifestation. He shatters Nebuchadnezzar’s image to pieces; and having opened the heaven, establishes therein a throne, which becomes the centre of a dominion extending over all the earth. The first time John heard the voice of this trumpet, it was "loud." It awoke him from the dust of death. But the second time, he does not say it was loud; this may be inferred, because it was the same voice. He was "looking," before the words of the voice addressed him. He had risen, and was contemplating the opening of a door in the heaven; and while so looking, there was a speaking from the opening inviting him into the heaven. Hence, the beginning of the first voice awoke him to life and action; and afterwards the same voice invited him to ascend to the heaven and to inherit the kingdom established there.

The trumpet to which this "loud," "first voice" belongs, is that represented in "the memorial of the blowing of trumpets," on the first day of the seventh month (Lev. xxiii. 24). It is that sounding by which the princes, heads of the thousands of Israel, are summoned to gather themselves together unto Christ, the King of Israel (Num. x. 4). It precedes the sounding on the tenth of the seventh month, which proclaims liberty throughout the land unto all the inhabitants thereof (Lev. xxv. 9). The saints are first raised and exalted to the heaven; in other words, "meet the Lord in the air," as symbolized in this fourth chapter; and then afterward "the Great Trumpet" of the Jubilee is blown by YAHWEH Elohim, who in the "lightnings and thunders which proceed out of the throne" (ver. 5), goes forth with the whirlwind of the south (Zech. ix. 14).

The silver trumpet that sounds upon the first day of the seventh month, gathers together that "great multitude which no man can number of all nations, and kindreds, and peoples, and tongues"; of which John says he beheld that "they stood before the Throne, and before the Lamb, clothed with white robes, and palms in their hands" (vii. 9). "These had been dead, but when the trumpet sounded at the time of the dead that they should be judged, and that Yahweh Elohim should give reward to his servants the prophets and to the saints, and to them that venerate his name, small and great" (xi. 18), when the loud trumpet-voice was heard at this time in the lower parts of the earth, all these, with John among the number, "turned" and "looked" -- awake from their dusty bed, come forth from their graves, and gather together unto him (2 Thess. ii. 1) who, by the energy of the Eternal Spirit, will have raised them from among the dead. This "first voice" which brings them together to stand before the throne in the heaven, plants them as the symbolical 144,000, upon MOUNT ZION, the area of the throne and Most Holy Place of the heaven; it plants them there with the Lamb, in preparation to "follow him whithersoever he goeth" (xiv. 1,4). In preparation to go forth, not in actual progress. Another "loud voice" must be heard before they go forth in the lightnings and thunders of the war of "the great day of God the Almighty" (xiv. 15; xvi. 14).

While prepared for war, but the lightnings and thunders not yet flashed forth from the throne (iv. 5), the trumpet of the Jubilee is sounded for the gathering together of the congregation of Israel from the four corners of the earth. The sound of this trumpet is not an alarm for war (Num. x. 7). It is the "loud voice" of the class-angel that flies in mid-heaven, making proclamation of the good pertaining to the Millennial Aion; announcing that the time of its introduction has arrived, and inviting mankind of all nations and tongues, to fear the Deity and give glory to him, because the hour of his judgment is come (xiv. 7). "The Great Trumpet," says Isaiah, "shall be blown, and they shall come which were ready to perish in the land of Assyria, and the outcasts in the land of Egypt, and shall worship Yahweh in the Holy Mount at Jerusalem" (xxvii. 13). This testimony informs us that the blowing of the great Jubilee trumpet on the tenth of the seventh month, will ultimate in the return of Israel to their fatherland; but this return will not result without war. The North will not give up, and the South will keep back, until both North and South are harvested, and gathered into the winepress of the wrath of God (xiv. 15,20). Assyria, or the North, and Egypt, or the South, will be the enemy oppressing them in their land. This being their condition, the ordinance appointed for their generations during the Mosaic Olahm, enjoined upon the priests to blow the two silver trumpets, with the assurance that the blasts thereof should cause them to be remembered before Yahweh their Elohim, and that consequently they should be saved from their enemies (Num. x. 9). This was a prophetic memorial, the body or substance of which is of the Christ (Col. ii. 16,17). It signified, that in "their latter end," when oppressed by the enemy, "the Devil and Satan," the loud angel-voices sent forth out of the throne (iv. 5), should proclaim war; and command the Son of Man in his white clouds of warriors, to thrust in the sharp sickle, and reap down their oppressors, and so save them from their enemies.

The "first voice," then, is the apocalyptic antitype of the Mosaic ordinance of the memorial of the blowing of the two silver trumpets, which were blown for the calling of the assembly, a holy convocation; and for the journeying of the camps. This "first voice" is heard by the class of which John is the apocalyptic representative, before the pouring out of the Seventh Vial "INTO THE AIR;" by which a breach is made, through which, as "a door," the saints, who are raised under the Sixth Vial -- "the kings which are from the Sun’s risings" -- who hear the first voice as of a trumpet speaking to them, enter into the heaven. Raised under the Sixth Vial, which has been pouring out upon the symbolical Euphrates for the last forty years of the present century, they await further developments. They await the smiting of the Nebuchadnezzar Image upon the feet, which is to manifest the temple of the Deity in the open heaven; and in the midst of that temple of holy ones, the Messianic Ark of his Covenant, whose propitiatory or mercy seat, is the crucified Nazarene (xi. 19)

 

 


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