Good evening and welcome to EBible Fellowship's Bible study in the Book of Revelation. Tonight is study #10 of Revelation, chapter 6, and we are going to be reading from Revelation 6:9-11:
And when he had opened the fifth seal, I saw under the altar the souls of them that were slain for the word of God, and for the testimony which they held: And they cried with a loud voice, saying, How long, O Lord, holy and true, dost thou not judge and avenge our blood on them that dwell on the earth? And white robes were given unto every one of them; and it was said unto them, that they should rest yet for a little season, until their fellowservants also and their brethren, that should be killed as they were, should be fulfilled.
Now we are moving on in our study in the Book of Revelation and this is the opening of the fifth seal. We have already looked at the language of these souls that were “under the altar” and we have seen that this has to do with the Lord Jesus Christ, whom the altar represents; the sacrificial animal would be slain and burnt upon the altar and the blood would be poured out upon the altar and, therefore, if there were any “under the altar” (as these souls were said to be), they would be covered.
Obviously, these individuals are saved; they are true men because they died as a result of holding onto the Bible, the Word of God. They died for the sake of God’s word. So we know they are true believers and true believers here are said to be “under the altar.” We can just see that image of the sacrificial blood being poured on the altar and then flowing down and if anything was under the altar, the blood would fall upon it. And that is the picture: it is the atoning work of the Lord Jesus for the sake of those He died for and His blood covers over their sin and washes it away.
So these men and women are just souls now; they have left their physical bodies on the earth and they have “gone to be with the Lord,” as the Bible tells us, at the moment of the death. The true believer’s soul, which is alive, cannot die because God has given us a resurrected soul (that is the first resurrection), the resurrection of the heart and spirit and there is no sin in that soul; it is perfectly pure and holy, but the body is dead because of sin, because it is the “old body” and there has been no resurrection of the body as yet. Therefore, the soul which continues to live goes to heaven to be with the Lord and the body goes into the ground to await the day of the resurrection, which will happen on the last day when God destroys the earth and resurrects the bodies of all His saints and their bodies will be joined together with the souls which have been in heaven with the Lord. On that day, it is the time for the completion of God’s salvation plan for the “second resurrection,” we could say, which is the resurrection of the body. So they will receive a new resurrected spiritual body, according to 1st Corinthians 15. This is something beyond our ability to comprehend. We think of bodies in the sense of something physical, yet, God refers to it as a spiritual body – it is a body equipped to live in the new heaven and new earth and a body equipped to live for evermore. It is a body equipped to live without pain or disease and without the effects of sin, whereas our physical bodies have experienced the effects of consequences of sin and that is why they see corruption and finally die.
Well, these individual souls are God’s elect and verse 11 lets it be known that these souls under the altar “should rest yet for a little season, until their fellowservants also and their brethren, that should be killed as they were, should be fulfilled.” And that lets us know that these souls that were “under the altar” are not all of the elect, but a portion of the elect, and there are others that have to “be killed as they were” and then that would be the complete number of all those God has chosen to salvation. Now we read in Revelation, chapter 20, some very similar language in Revelation 20:4:
And I saw thrones, and they sat upon them, and judgment was given unto them: and I saw the souls of them that were beheaded for the witness of Jesus, and for the word of God, and which had not worshipped the beast, neither his image, neither had received his mark upon their foreheads, or in their hands; and they lived and reigned with Christ a thousand years.
Again, this goes along with the verse in Revelation 6:9. It mentions “souls” but does not mention “bodies” and they are living and reigning “with Christ a thousand years.” The thousand years is pointing to the completeness of what is in view. And what is in view? It is eternity; that is how long God’s people live and reign with Christ. When a person becomes saved, he is lifted up into heavenly places, but when a saved person dies, he goes to be with the Lord. And these “souls” had their period of life on earth and they were triumphant – they were victorious through Christ, as God moved in them to “will and to do of His good pleasure,” and they lived their lives as faithful witnesses to the Lord and when they died, they went to be with Him.
And notice that it says they “had not worshipped the beast, neither his image,” and this lets us know that they had their period of time on earth before Satan was loosed out of the bottomless pit, as the first three verses of Revelation 20 describe Satan being cast into the bottomless pit and bound for a thousand years; and that period of time has to do with the entire church age. Then Satan was loosed at the end of the church age, which occurred on May 21, 1988 (the day before Pentecost), and he took upon himself the title of the “beast.” In Revelation 13, God describes the “beast” that was given authority in the churches and in the world during the Great Tribulation, the period that went from May 21, 1988 to May 21, 2011.
Yet, these souls did not have to deal with that; they did not worship the beast or his image. Then it says in Revelation 20:5:
But the rest of the dead lived not again until the thousand years were finished. This is the first resurrection.
Here, we have a similar group of believers that, likewise, are coming after this other group, just as in Revelation 6 there were “fellowservants” that would be killed as they were; and, here, there are “the rest of the dead” that “lived not again until the thousand years were finished.” That means that “the rest of the dead” would live again or they would become saved during the time after the end of the church age, the time of the Great Tribulation. And the Great Tribulation is also identified as “a little season,” just as Revelation 6:11 says: “they should rest yet for a little season, until their fellowservants also and their brethren, that should be killed as they were, should be fulfilled.”
So we do see that God has two groups – two particular groups of elect – in view: one group, the souls under the altar that are crying out, “How long until you judge and avenge?” And then another group that relates to “the little season.” And in Revelation 20, there are two groups: souls beheaded for the witness of Jesus that did not have anything to do with the beast and then the “rest of the dead” that will live again after the thousand years (or during the time of the Great Tribulation).
And that is exactly what we will find in Revelation, chapter 7: two groups are in view, as the Lord refers to twelve thousand being sealed of the twelve tribes of Israel – 144,000 in all. Then in Revelation 7:9, He says:
After this I beheld, and, lo, a great multitude, which no man could number…
Again, two groups are in view: the 144,000, which Revelation 14 refers to as the “firstfruits” when the 144,000 are mentioned there; and “a great multitude, which no man could number.”
And it goes on in Revelation 7:13 to ask the question regarding the great multitude, “Whence came they?” And Revelation 7:14 says: “These are they which came out of great tribulation.”
Now, again, God is making a distinction; the “firstfruits” identify with the church age, the Feast of Pentecost; the church age began on Pentecost in A.D.33 (we read about that in Acts, chapter 2) and it continued until the day before Pentecost in 1988, after 1,955 years of the church age. Then another time period comes (the end of the church age, the time when judgment began at the house of God) and also known as the Great Tribulation; the Great Tribulation is also called “a little season,” and is identified as the time after the thousand years of Satan’s binding in Revelation 20, and it is referred to here in Revelation 7 as “great tribulation.”
We have these three major testimonies of the Bible pointing to two groups that will become saved, overall, in God’s salvation program: the souls under the altar are the first group; they are those that are saved during the church age, primarily; that is the picture God is giving us, but, of course, he saved saints in the Old Testament, but God’s overall plan of evangelizing the world began in 33 A.D. and that is the period in which the vast majority of people will become saved. The numbers saved from the beginning of time until 33 A.D. are relatively small; as we look at Israel’s history, there were only a small number of true believers that God saved, but on the day of Pentecost 3,000 were saved in one day and that was the “kick off” or inaugural of the church age as God began to send forth His Gospel into the nations. And even over those 1,955 years, many more were saved than in the time of the Old Testament, but still it was nothing in comparison to God’s final plan when He would allow the population of the world to explode to billions of people – to about seven billion – before the time He would end His salvation program. He determined to save a “great multitude” out of the “little season” that came right before the judgment on all the world when He would finally shut the door to heaven. So we see reference to this overall plan of God’s salvation with the “souls under the altar” and then the reference to “their fellowservants.”
Now let us also look at Revelation, chapter 17, because in our verse in Revelation 6:10 the souls under the altar “cried with a loud voice, saying, How long, O Lord, holy and true, dost thou not judge and avenge our blood on them that dwell on the earth?” The souls are crying out. Now we are not to think that there are these souls in heaven that are demanding vengeance constantly of God – that they are vindictively wanting retribution on those that that anything to do with their death. God is just using this language to paint a picture to teach us that He remembers the “blood of His people,” the blood of a child of God (and the life is in the blood) and the lives of His people that were given for the sake of the Word of God, whether physically or whether they died spiritually, in ways such as being driven out of the synagogues or being hated of their fellow man; and, certainly, the unsaved people of the world have hated the true believers and they have separated them from their company. This has happened again, and again, and again.
So if it were not “spiritual killing,” through driving someone out of a church or synagogue for faithfully adhering to the Word of God, it could be through the unsaved people of the world (even within one’s own family) moving away from them or separating from them and, so, in a sense, they are hating them. It could, of course, even be a mother or a father or brother or a sister and they may never want to even think that is what they are doing, but in actuality, that is what happened and God takes note. And He, of course, has taken note of all the saints that have died through actual physical persecution and physical harm that has come to them by the wicked of the world.
For instance, we read of Abel in Hebrews 11:4:
By faith Abel offered unto God a more excellent sacrifice than Cain, by which he obtained witness that he was righteous, God testifying of his gifts: and by it he being dead yet speaketh.
God took note of the death of Abel. Let us go back to Genesis 4 and we will read of when Cain rose up and slew his brother. It says in Genesis 4:8-10:
And Cain talked with Abel his brother: and it came to pass, when they were in the field, that Cain rose up against Abel his brother, and slew him. And JEHOVAH said unto Cain, Where is Abel thy brother? And he said, I know not: Am I my brother's keeper? And he said, What hast thou done? the voice of thy brother's blood crieth unto me from the ground.
And, here, we see that Abel was killed and his blood was shed and God uses that figure to say that the “voice” of Abel’s blood cries unto Him. It is not actually crying unto Him, but that is the picture the LORD is using concerning the “souls” of them that were slain for the Word of God, just as Abel was slain for offering the acceptable sacrifice, which was that he did not trust in the sacrifice he offered, but he trusted in the one that the sacrifice pointed to, the Lord Jesus Christ.
And Cain trusted in his “work” in offering the sacrifice. This is why 1st John says that Cain’s works were evil while his brother’s was righteous because Abel was not trusting in his own work, but trusting in the work of Christ on his behalf.
So after Abel’s death when Cain rose up and slew his brother, God says that He hears the “blood” of Abel crying unto Him, crying as we read in Revelation 6:10:
How long, O Lord, holy and true, dost thou not judge and avenge our blood on them that dwell on the earth?
They are crying for justice and God is just using the figure of these souls crying unto Him to teach us that the death of His saints does not go unnoticed. There is a requirement that the Law of God demands justice for their sakes. Now in Revelation 18, we read in that chapter of the judgment that comes upon Babylon, which is a type and figure of this world and the kingdom of Satan, and it says in Revelation 18:20:
Rejoice over her, thou heaven, and ye holy apostles and prophets; for God hath avenged you on her.
And then it says in Revelation 18:24:
And in her was found the blood of prophets, and of saints, and of all that were slain upon the earth.
God has brought judgment on the world; actually, the judgment began on the house of God for the very same reason back in 1988 when God began judging the churches and the “blood” of His prophets and saints had a lot to do with bringing judgment upon the churches and congregations. And God is now also judging the world itself for the very same reason – for slaying His people, whether physically or spiritually. They are guilty of the blood of the children of God.
We read in Matthew 23 something that relates to this and it is put in a very interesting way. It says in Matthew 23:32-36:
Fill ye up then the measure of your fathers. Ye serpents, ye generation of vipers, how can ye escape the damnation of hell? Wherefore, behold, I send unto you prophets, and wise men, and scribes: and some of them ye shall kill and crucify; and some of them shall ye scourge in your synagogues, and persecute them from city to city: That upon you may come all the righteous blood shed upon the earth, from the blood of righteous Abel unto the blood of Zacharias son of Barachias, whom ye slew between the temple and the altar. Verily I say unto you, All these things shall come upon this generation.
This is why there are some theologians that say the temple was destroyed in 70 A.D. and that is what Matthew 24 is describing because Jesus said that the judgment must come upon “this generation.” And, of course, they hear that with their natural ears and natural understanding and they think it obviously had to do with the generation which was alive at the time of Christ; they do this rather than searching the Bible and looking up the word generation and then they would find that the Bible gives reference to “an evil and adulterous generation.” It is a “generation of evil” and it is a generation that has been around since man’s fall into sin. The fall ushered in and brought to pass evil in the world and, therefore, mankind entered into a “generation of evil” since that point.
In another one of the Lord’s parables about the unjust steward who was commended, it says in Luke 16:8:
And the lord commended the unjust steward, because he had done wisely: for the children of this world are in their generation wiser than the children of light.
You see, it is all one “generation” in God’s sight. It is the “generation of evil.” It is “an evil and adulterous generation that seeketh after a sign,” Christ would say when some would come and tempting him, seeking a sign. It is why Luke 21 says “this generation shall not pass away till all be fulfilled.” It is not just that particular generation alive at that time, as Luke 21 has to do with the end of the world, but it is the generation of sinful, wicked and evil mankind.
Now in our next Bible study we are going to take a look at the statement that Christ makes in Matthew 23:35:
That upon you may come all the righteous blood shed upon the earth, from the blood of righteous Abel unto the blood of Zacharias son of Barachias…
We are going to try to understand this a little bit better and, also, we have been under a misconception in thinking that Babylon represented only the church and that God is only judging the church for the blood of His people. If that is so, why does He refer back to Abel? Abel was born in the very beginning and there was no church – there was not even a nation of Israel. There were no corporate bodies of any kind, but God dealt with individuals.
Lord willing, we will try to discuss and understand that when we get together in our next Bible study.