Revelation 16:5
And I heard the angel of the waters say, Thou art righteous, O Lord, which art, and wast, and shalt be, because thou hast judged thus. And I heard the angel of the waters say, Thou art righteous, O Lord, which art, and wast, and shalt be, because thou hast judged thus.
The angel of the waters declares God righteous in pouring out His wrath in judgment. The judgment belongs to the seven last plagues poured out unmixed with mercy upon the living wicked who worship the beast and receive its mark, after Christ's priestly mediation has ended and mercy no longer pleads for them. It is righteous because those who condemned God's saints and prophets to death and shed their blood are justly given blood to drink. It is also the vindication of His dishonored law after long forbearance, when the earth is defiled by transgression and men trample His covenant and Sabbath. Only those sanctified through the truth and hid with Christ in God will be sheltered from the wrath, so the gathering storm calls men now to exchange darkness for light while mercy still lingers.
Setting Among Last Plagues
The declaration belongs to the account of the seven last plagues, which are God's judgments poured out upon the ungodly living wicked who worship the beast and receive its mark. They fall upon the wicked who have no shelter. For those without shelter there is no deliverance from them. The last plagues are pictured by the plagues upon Egypt before and at Israel's deliverance from bondage. They likewise fall upon the wicked just before and at the deliverance of the saints.
The vision is a prophetic picture of the coming day of God's wrath, when the Lord repays His adversaries. It stands as part of the prophecies of Revelation 12-18, which are being fulfilled. The opening of the vials of wrath is seen in terrible scenes taking place as signs of Christ's coming. Then pestilence, famine, and death come upon the inhabitants of the earth.
Timing After Probation Closes
The seven last plagues to which the verse belongs fall after Jesus finishes His priestly work in the heavenly sanctuary and in the most holy place. They are the full measure of wrath against the living wicked, poured out when He comes as king to execute judgment. They come after the four angels release the four winds, bringing judgments on the wicked who blame the saints for them and seek to kill them. God delivers the saints by His voice, and the 144,000 triumph, while the plagues fall on those who have rejected His truth and God is affirmed righteous in the judgments He sends.
That wrath cannot come until every case is decided for salvation or for destruction. Then Jesus lays off His priestly attire and clothes Himself with garments of vengeance, and steps out from between the Father and man. Then God no longer keeps silent but pours out His wrath on those who rejected His truth, when the High Priest has finished His work in the sanctuary and stands up. The four angels hold the four winds until that sanctuary work is done, then the seven last plagues are poured out. This is while Michael has not yet stood up and the time of trouble such as never was has not yet commenced, though the nations are now getting angry.
The verse is set after Christ's work of mediation and mercy has ended and the angel of mercy has left the world. It belongs to a time of sin and shame and sorrow and darkness on every side. Then the guilty have no atoning blood to cleanse them and no Saviour pleading for more time, and those who rejected salvation realize it is too late. God's patience and mercy still offer men the privilege of exchanging darkness for light and error for truth and sin for righteousness, but they will not wait always. The storm is gathering and the bolts of wrath are soon to fall, and when punishment of transgressors begins there will be no period of respite until the end.
Honest believers will be called out of the fallen churches before the plagues are poured out on the earth.
God's Righteous Judgment
The declaration that the Lord is righteous in judging is spoken over the final plagues, where wrath falls unmixed with mercy after intercession has ceased, terrible in suffering yet not destroying every inhabitant of the earth. The righteousness lies in this, that the judgments answer the persecution and bloodshed of His people, for those who condemned saints and prophets to death are counted guilty of shedding their blood and are given blood to drink as a just and fully deserved sentence. By that decree of death against the faithful, the persecutors incur the bloodguilt themselves, and the retribution fits the crime.
As the wrath is poured out the angel of the waters affirms that God is righteous in judging and that His judgments are just. The heavenly beings who execute His commands do so faithfully, without questioning them. The plagues are thus expressions of wrath and justice together, and the judgment continues until His purposes are fulfilled. Then false shepherds acknowledge that God has loved the saints because they held fast to the truth and kept His commandments, while the unrighteous are destroyed from the earth.
This judgment is bound to God's dishonored law and to the defilement of the earth by its inhabitants upon whom the vials of wrath are poured out. It comes after wonderful long forbearance in which divine compassion flowed while stubborn hearts beat it back, until a vast number pass the boundaries, exceed the bounds prescribed by God, and outrun the limits of His grace. Omnipotence keeps a reckoning of the sum of guiltiness of every nation and will not at all acquit the wicked who trample His holy law under foot, make void His law, make human laws supreme, break His covenant, and trample His Sabbath for a spurious rest day, ripening the harvest of the world for the sickle. Therefore His interference must come to vindicate His honor and punish the inhabitants of the earth for their iniquity, and He will not long delay, permitting these judgments also that the world may take heed and sinners may fear Him.
Before Christ's first advent refusal to conform to God's law had become widespread and Satan's warfare against heaven had become determined, heaven waiting for the command with one word or sign able to destroy the world for its iniquity. If the earth had then been destroyed, the unfallen worlds would have answered that extermination of rebellion as righteous judgment. Instead God gave His Son to save the world rather than to condemn it.
Character and Prophetic Signs
The plagues are wrath poured out unmixed with mercy after intercession has ceased, terrible in their suffering and anguish upon the wicked, yet they do not destroy every inhabitant of the earth. They are judgments upon the living wicked, but they are not the final execution of judgment, for that execution comes at the second death. Their anguish is great and agonizing to those who bear them, marking them as the last plagues of God's righteous dealing.
They include awful calamities by sea, with vessels hurled into eternity without a moment's warning, and calamities by land, with fire consuming riches men have hoarded. Much of that wealth was accumulated by oppression of the poor, and the most costly structures are swept away as if by a breath of fire from heaven. The Lord will not interfere to protect the property of those who transgress His law, break His covenant, and trample His Sabbath to accept a spurious rest day in its place.
The early, limited effects of these judgments are already falling on land and sea. Present disasters and diseases are early drops from the vials of wrath and faint warnings and signs of far greater convulsions and destruction to come. Withering as they are, they will fall on kings and nobles and rich and poor alike, until human pride is humbled.
Trumpet after trumpet is sounded and vial after vial is poured out one after another upon the inhabitants of the earth. These outpourings belong to the last great final contest in which all the world takes one side or the other and the battle of Armageddon is fought. They are sure indications of Christ's presence directing His cause, vindicating His truth and causing it to triumph, and supplying His faithful ones with motive and power of purpose, with hope and courage and valor for increased activity because the time is at hand.
Those who fail to recognize the signs of the times in this wicked and adulterous generation will perish under these plagues. The judgments now being sent show how fast the last great crisis is approaching and have special meaning. They call for spending less time in strife and contention, and those who claim they have no special meaning will soon be forced to understand what they now choose not to understand.
Shelter and Final Warning
God's people are given a covering that shelters them from the wrath of the seven last plagues. Only those sanctified through the truth in the love of God will stand, hid with Christ in God until the desolation is overpast, and no hiding behind a lie will escape because God strips away the refuge of lies. The needed shelter of the Holy Ghost must be received now, for when the plagues begin to fall those without shelter will wring their hands in anguish and it will then be too late to prepare.
The plagues enrage the wicked against the righteous, whom they blame for bringing the judgments and seek to rid from the earth and kill in order to stay them. God delivers the saints by His voice, and the 144,000 triumph. Some living in 1856 would live to be subjects who experience the seven last plagues as a future severe trial, distinct from those who would die beforehand and from those who would be translated to heaven at Christ's coming without seeing death. So also among those present, some will be among those who experience the plagues, while others will remain alive until Jesus comes and be translated.
God permits these judgments to come that the world may take heed, that professing Christians may come to their senses, and that sinners may be afraid and tremble before Him. They include awful calamities by sea with vessels hurled into eternity without a moment's warning, and calamities by land with fire consuming hoarded riches, much of it accumulated by oppression of the poor, sweeping away the most costly structures as if by a breath of fire from heaven. The Lord will not interfere to protect the property of those who transgress His law, break His covenant, and trample upon His Sabbath, accepting in its place a spurious rest day.
God's patience and mercy still offer men the privilege of exchanging darkness for light, error for truth, and sin for righteousness, but they will not wait always. The storm is gathering and the bolts of wrath are soon to fall after the angel of mercy leaves the world amid sin, shame, sorrow and darkness on every side, and when punishment of transgressors begins there will be no period of respite until the end. Understanding Revelation and closely and prayerfully studying its account of the coming plagues without misinterpreting its symbols is necessary to shape one's course and actions so as not to receive them.