Great Earthquake
The final day of wrath will be characterized by unprecedented celestial and terrestrial events, including the final “great earthquake.”
In four separate passages, Revelation
refers to the coming “great earthquake,” and each time locates it on the
day of God’s final “wrath.” Chaos in the heavens and unimaginable
seismic shifts on the earth will mark the arrival of the “Day of the Lord,”
the Great Dénouement when God vindicates His people and punishes His
enemies.
When John was summoned
to heaven, he observed the “throne” at the center of the universe and “One
sitting on it.” The “throne” was surrounded by twenty-four smaller thrones
occupied by “four and twenty elders arrayed in white garment, wearing golden crowns.” A series of visual
and audible phenomena proceeded from the divine “throne… flashes of
lightning, loud voices, and claps of thunder” – (Revelation
4:1-5).
Later, when the “Lamb”
opened the “sixth seal,” the “great earthquake”
shook the earth, accompanied by celestial upheaval. The entire Cosmos was
shaken to its foundations:
- “The sun became black as sackcloth, and the whole moon became as blood. The stars of the heavens fell to the earth… And the heaven was removed as a scroll when it is rolled up, and every mountain and island were moved out of their places” – (Revelation 6:12-17).
The description of
cosmic chaos echoes Old Testament passages about the “Day of Yahweh,”
the dreadful time of His judgment - (Joel 2:30-31,
3:15, Isaiah 13:9-11).
DAY OF THE LORD
Likewise, when the “sixth
seal” was opened it was the time for the “wrath of the Lamb” and
that of the “One who sits on the throne,” the “great day of their
wrath” and the judgment of the “kings of
the earth, the
princes, the
chief captains, the
rich, the
strong, and every bondman and freeman.” On
that day, “Who will be able to stand,” and no one will escape.
The “great earthquake” and the awesome celestial events unleashed
by the “sixth seal” do not portend the imminence of the end. Instead,
they accompany the arrival of that day as the entire creation reacts to the approach
of the “Day of the Lord.” Mountains are laid low, and “every island
flees” before the presence of the “Lamb.”
At the close of the “seven
seals,” an angel filled his “censer with the fire from the altar” and
cast it onto the earth. This produced “claps of thunder, loud voices, flashes of lightning, and an earthquake,” the same phenomena were seen around the “throne,” only now, the “earthquake”
is added to the mix - (Revelation 8:5).
After the Spirit of God raised
the “two witnesses” from the dead, a “great earthquake” overthrew a “tenth of
the city,” identified as the “great
city, which spiritually is called Sodom and Egypt,
where also our
Lord was crucified.”
Elsewhere, the “great city” is identified as “Babylon, the Great Harlot.” Just as God shook the city of Jerusalem following the death of Jesus, so He shook the “great city” after the death of the “two witnesses” – (Matthew 27:51, Revelation 16:19, 17:18).
The ascension of the “witnesses”
was followed by the sounding of the “seventh trumpet,” which produced
the victory of the kingdom of God, the time of “wrath” on the nations,
the judgment of the dead, the punishment of the wicked, and the vindication of
the righteous. The “seventh trumpet” concluded with “flashes of
thunder, loud voices, claps of thunder, and an earthquake,” but
also “great hail” is added to the series – (Revelation
11:15-19).
When the seventh angel
emptied the final “bowl of wrath,” a great voice declared, “It is
finished!” The “seven bowls of wrath” completed the “wrath of God.”
The declaration was followed by “flashes of lightning, loud voices, claps of
thunder, and the great earthquake.”
The earthquake was so massive
that “every island fled away,
and the mountains were not found,” the same terrestrial upheavals caused by the “sixth
seal.” The parallel descriptions are not coincidental; the same final event
is in view here.
BABYLON FALLS
Once again, the “great city” suffered. It was “divided into three parts,” signifying
the fall of the “cities of the nations,” and
the time for “Babylon the great” to
drain the “cup of the wine of the fierceness of God’s wrath.”
This judgment was anticipated in chapter
14 when the angel declared the fall of “Babylon the great,”
because she made “all the nations to drink of the wine of the wrath of her fornication.” So, here, with her fall, the “great city” drank
the full “fierceness of the wrath of God” – (Revelation 14:8).
The same fall of “Babylon” is
presented in greater detail in chapter 18. The day of her judgment arrived:
- “For her sins have reached even to heaven, and God has remembered her iniquities… Therefore, in one day shall her plagues come, death, and mourning, and famine; and she shall be utterly burned with fire; for strong is the Lord God who judges her.”
The “kings of the earth” who
committed fornication with her stood afar off, crying, “Woe, the great
city, Babylon, the strong city, for in one hour does her judgment come!” Likewise, the
merchants and mariners of the earth enriched by her wailed:
- “Woe, woe, the great city…for in one hour so great riches is made desolate… and they cried out as they looked upon the smoke of her burning, saying: What city is like the great city?... Woe, woe, the great city, for in one hour is she made desolate.”
What is described is nothing less than the final overthrow and
destruction of “Babylon.” As the chapter concludes, “Thus with a
mighty fall shall Babylon, the great city, be cast down, and she
shall be found no more at all.”
All three sevenfold series conclude with the same phenomena - “flashes of lightning, great voices, claps of thunder” - along with the “earthquake” and “hail.”
Not coincidentally, the last two items intensify
as the final series completes the “wrath of God.” So much so, that the
final seismic event is greater than any in human memory as is the “great
hail” that tormented humanity, “for the plague thereof was exceeding
great.”
The verbal links between the final events of each sevenfold series are
deliberate. Each series reaches the same endpoint, the “day of the Lord”
and the time of “wrath.” With the arrival of that day, the entire Cosmos
is shaken to its core. Stars fall, the earth shakes, and mountains and islands flee.
Whether the “great earthquake” is literal or
figurative, it is final. It is NOT
a harbinger of things to come, but one of the unprecedented events that will characterize
the arrival of THE final day. For the wicked, there will be no
escape. For the righteous, however, it will be the day of resurrection,
vindication, and victory as the reign of God is consummated throughout the
Cosmos.
