Two Harvests & One Harmony

Revelation 14:14-15:4

Acts 17:30–31a: The times of ignorance God overlooked, but now he commands all people everywhere to repent, because he has fixed a day on which he will judge the world in righteousness by a man whom he has appointed…

Main Idea: We join the song of the Lamb because Christ saves his people and judges righteously.

I. The Grain Harvest of Salvation (14:14-16)

John now looks and sees a “white cloud, and seated on the cloud one like a son of man, with a golden crown on his head, and a sharp sickle in his hand” (14:14; cf. 1:7, 13). This figure is a callback to Daniel 7:13-14, and this description suggests complete rule and reign over all of creation (Ps. 110:1).

“On that great day, he will come sitting upon a cloud…. It must mean that his judgment-seat will be far more glorious than the thrones of mere mortal monarchs. They may sit upon thrones of ivory; they may exalt themselves upon thrones made of gold and bedecked with myriads of gems shining like the eyes of the morning, or the stars of the midnight sky; but their thrones can never be compared in splendor with the judgment seat of Christ. A great white throne shall come sailing along the sky, and on it shall sit the King of kings, and Lord of lords, the Judge of all, who has the right to sit in judgment, whose decisions will be impartial and infallible, and whose sentences will assuredly be carried out. He asks not for any throne that this world could supply; he borrows no leave to judge from Parliament, or Pope, or prince. He is Judge by divine right, as himself God, and as the Mediator, appointed by God to judge the quick and the dead.”
~ Charles Spurgeon, “The Harvest and the Vintage”

This “Son of Man” has a sharp sickle in his hand, used for harvesting. This first harvest seems to be an “ingathering” and a “reaping” of the plentiful harvest of salvation, frequently referenced by Jesus:

Matthew 9:37–38: Then he said to his disciples, “The harvest is plentiful, but the laborers are few; therefore pray earnestly to the Lord of the harvest to send out laborers into his harvest.”
The Parable of the Sower (Mt. 13:1-9, 18-23)
The Parable of the Wheat & the Weeds (Mt. 13:24-30, 36-43)

Matthew 24:29–31: Immediately after the tribulation of those days the sun will be darkened, and the moon will not give its light, and the stars will fall from heaven, and the powers of the heavens will be shaken. Then will appear in heaven the sign of the Son of Man, and then all the tribes of the earth will mourn, and they will see the Son of Man coming on the clouds of heaven with power and great glory. And he will send out his angels with a loud trumpet call, and they will gather his elect from the four winds, from one end of heaven to the other.

God’s people must wait with a patient endurance for the harvest day of salvation to come. This is the day of our “blessed hope” (Titus 2:13) that we must keep before us in faith as we endure persecution and resist the schemes of the enemy.

II. The Grape Harvest of Judgment (14:17-20)

While the Son of Man himself does the reaping of the “harvest of salvation,” here he commissions “the angel who has authority over the fire” (cf. 8:5) to reap with a sharp sickle. This reaping is unmistakably one of judgment, and treading a winepress is often used symbolically in the OT to speak of God’s judgment (cf. Isa. 62:2-3; Lam. 1:15; Joel 3:13).

This winepress is “outside the city,” and not safe within Mt. Zion (cf. Heb. 13:12-13). The running blood for “1,600 stadia” symbolizes full and final judgment on evil, sin, and wrongdoing. This grape harvest of judgment is the answer to the prayer of “how long?” that permeates Revelation (6:10) and our human experience in this fallen world (cf. Ps. 13).

Matthew 3:7–8: But when he saw many of the Pharisees and Sadducees coming to his baptism, he said to them, “You brood of vipers! Who warned you to flee from the wrath to come? Bear fruit in keeping with repentance.

III. The Great Harmony of the Saints (15:1-4)

John now sees another “sign in heaven” that points to the resolution of the conflict between the first two “signs” of the woman (12:1) and the dragon (12:3). The “sea of glass” that the conquering saints stand beside (or on) reminds us of two realities:

The sea of glass in the heavenly throne room (4:6)
The Israelites crossing through the Red Sea, led by a pillar of fire (Ex. 14)

These saints, with harps of God in their hands, “sing the song of Moses” (Ex. 15; Deut. 32), and the song of the Lamb. Just as Israel responded to their own salvation through judgment by singing, so too the saints of God throughout all of human history sing and worship the Lamb, who has saved them through judgment.

The Song of the Lamb emphasizes:

The Greatness of God - “Great and amazing are your deeds…”
The Goodness of God - “Just and true are your ways… You alone are holy”
The Glory of God - “All nations will come and worship you, for your righteous acts have been revealed.”

“Revelation began with a vision of the Christ whom we worship (Rev 1) and was followed up with a vision of God’s people at worship (Rev. 4-5); it will conclude with the newly created heaven and earth fashioned into a place of worship, a sanctuary (Rev. 21-22). John, an exiled pastor with responsibility for seven congregations of Christians subject to a barrage of violence and propaganda from without and infiltrated within by cunningly attractive lies, can think of nothing better than to call them to worship. His insistence on contextualizing everything that they think, experience, and feel in the act of worship is not the fussiness of a liturgiologist who cannot bear the mess of ordinary life and so escapes into the arranged beauties of incense, chant, and ritual. No spiritual leader has shown as much evidence as John has of being in touch with and responsive to the manifold difficulties of living a difficult life in a difficult world… his recurrent representations of worship are not pious, escapist fictions, but theological convictions… In a world in which we are constantly subject to dizzying disorientations, worship is the act in which we are reoriented. Worship is the essential and central act of the Christian.”
~ Eugene Peterson, Reversed Thunder