"And another angel came and stood at the altar with a golden censer, and he was given much incense to offer with the prayers of all the saints on the golden altar before the throne, and the smoke of the incense, with the prayers of the saints, rose before God from the hand of the angel."
(Revelation 8:3-4)
The fact that the smoke of the incense goes up with the prayers of the saints shows that the petition of (Rev. 6:9-10) is now being presented before God. In the Bible, incense is always associated with sacrifice, so that the sacrifice, accompanied by a pleasing aroma, will be acceptable to God. These verses echo (Lev. 16:12-13), where the priest takes the censor full of coals off the altar before the Lord, fills his hands with incense, and puts the incense on the fire before the Lord.
In (Psalm 141:2) prayer is associated with incense and compared to a form of sacrifice:"Let my prayer be counted as incense before you, and the lifting up of my hands as the evening sacrifice!"
The fact that incense is offered from the altar shows that the prayers of the saints who were slain for their testimony (Rev. 6:9) represent the sacrifice of their lives in the cause of Christ, and so their petition for judgement in (Rev. 6:10) has been found acceptable to God.
(G.K. Beale)
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