Sermon Tone Analysis

Summary

Revelation 8 begins the vision of the first six trumpets.

The sequence is kicked off by the Lamb’s opening of the seventh and final seal on the scroll from Revelation 5.

The chapter raises some immediate questions: How are we to understand the silence in heaven?

Who are the seven angels?

Do the ensuing trumpet judgments have an Old Testament context?

This episode of the study answers these questions and prepare us for the judgment sequence through the remainder of Revelation 8 and Revelation 9.

Introduction

Because that’s what we get in Revelation 8.

So this chapter is the beginning of the vision of the six trumpets.

And the sequence of those is kicked off in the first verse of Revelation 8:1, which is where the Lamb (of course, whom we know is identified with Jesus according to Revelation 5 and 6 and so on)… It’s kicked off by the Lamb’s opening of the seventh and final seal on the scroll.

So for those who are familiar with Revelation (at least vaguely familiar), you get this Divine Council scene in Revelation 4-5 that we spent a couple of weeks talking about.

And in the hand of God who is seated on the throne is this scroll.

The scroll has seven seals on it.

And we’re actually going to return to the issue of, the scroll isn’t really opened until all of the seals are broken.

Because just think about it, think about the real life equivalent or side of the metaphor.

I mean, you might have seven seals on the thing, but if six of them are off and the seventh is still there,

you’re still not able to open the scroll.

That might actually be a factor interpretively here, in the sequence beginning.

But once that last seal is broken, now we get six trumpets.

And these are going to be judgments, at least that spill on into chapter 9. You’re going to get a seventh later on.

But again, for a discrete unit, 8 and 9 go together.

They operate in tandem.

So in the space of those two chapters, we’re going to get these six trumpets—these judgments.

And so we might as well just jump right in.

I’m going to read the first six verses, because that’s really what we’re going to cover today.

And then next time we’re going to hit the trumpet judgments themselves.

Because they (at least the first four of them) have a very obvious overlap with the plagues back in the Exodus story.

So those six are going to be covered in the next episode.

So, this is going to be set-up for that.

But anybody who looks at the chapter is going to know that, boy, this sounds very obviously like the plagues on Egypt at the Exodus.

And we’ll get to that, and that’s important, because again, we’re focused on the use of the Old Testament when it comes to the content of Revelation.

So let’s just read the first six verses.

That’s what we’ll hit today.

Rev 8: 1-6

That’s the end of the sixth verse.

And of course, then that starts off the sequence.

So the first thing we hit here is (it’s kind of obvious) “there was silence in heaven.”

Like, what’s that all about?

There are actually several interpretive options for this, all of which have been offered by scholars and those scholars have proposed some connection with the Old Testament.

So we’re just going to hit the options real quickly here.

There are several of these:

Praises silenced

1. Tonstad in his Revelation commentary its Recommend it’s actually got some really interesting things to say, because this is an author that actually recognizes Divine Council stuff in the book, which I think is why it was recommended to me specifically.

But Tonstad in his Revelation commentary (part of the Paideia commentary series on the New Testament) offers a couple of interpretations.

The first one that he jumps into is that the silence is the silencing of prayers.

And in this category, he writes in his commentary that R. H. Charles suggested this.

And the quote from Charles’ old Revelation commentary… And that name might be familiar to those who are into the book of Enoch.

It’s the same guy (R. H. Charles) who spent a lot of time in the book of Revelation.

It’s apocalyptic literature, and the book of Enoch is also apocalyptic literature.

But Charles wrote,

The praises of the highest orders of angels are hushed that the prayers of all the suffering saints on earth may be heard before the throne.

So, again, this is just one option.

And Tonstad goes through a few of these.

And this is where I decided to start.

In this scenario, there’s an enforced silence in heaven so that the prayers of the people suffering on earth don’t get drowned out.

Well, I mean, the text doesn’t actually say that.

But there you go.

Charles proposed this view in 1920.

You can tend to find this sort of thing in apocalyptic literature.

Certainly you find prayers, both in terms of what’s being done in heaven and on earth, in the book of Revelation you’ll find that.

And again, this is just the way he takes the silence.

So it’s the silencing of prayers.

Because what else could be going on that would need silencing?

And so he opts for this, the prayers that have been mentioned up to this point.

Plus, he’s going to associate it with the incense language.

Because again, that was language used in the Old Testament to symbolize the ascent of prayers to heaven, the burning of the incense and so on and so forth.

So it’s not a far-fetched view or just a stab in the dark.

It’s just one of several.

And that’s where Charles was at, and so Tonstad mentions it.

Astonished at Him

1.

But Tonstad actually prefers a different option, which again, I don't know how the audience is going to think about this.

Again, we’re just going through the options.

This probably really wouldn’t occur to anybody.

And I have to be honest with you, I don't think this is that persuasive compared to some of the other options.

But Tonstad’s own view is that the silence is really about the Lamb.

That might sound a little weird.

But here’s how he puts it.

He says:

Silence is the most striking feature of the OT scene that has the greatest bearing on how best to understand the silence in heaven [here in Revelation 8:1].

And then he quotes Isaiah 52:14–15.

And I would assume this is his own translation.

So those verses say:

Just as there were many who were astonished at him [this is the suffering servant from Isaiah

52, going into Isaiah 53]

—so marred was his appearance, beyond human semblance, and his form beyond that of mortals

—so he shall startle many nations; kings shall shut their mouths because of him;

for that which had not been told them they shall see,

and that which they had not heard they shall contemplate.

(Isa.

52:14–15, emphasis added)

His argument is basically, “Look, these two verses in Isaiah 52 depict a silencing—‘the silence of shock and awe in the face of an unexpected discovery.’

Of course, in this case it’s the identity of the suffering servant.”

So again, what’s the cause of the silence back in Isaiah 52?

They “were astonished at him.”

And of course, this is the identity of the messianic servant who everybody thought was beaten and defeated and so on and so forth.

Well, it turns out, no, not at all.

And so he says,

When this detail is applied to the mystery in Revelation, the cause for the silence will not be the events that are disclosed or events still to be disclosed—whether the terrors of judgment or the prayers of the saints…

He says, in fact, the silence is going to be due to “the Lamb in the middle of the throne.”