"Then the angel took the censer and filled it with fire from the altar and threw it on the earth, and there were peals of thunder, rumblings, flashes of lightning, and an earthquake."
(Revelation 8:5)
The four-fold response to the coals thrown on the earth represents cataclysmic judgment. John’s language is borrowed from the scene in (Exodus 19) when God descended on the mountain to give His righteous law to Israel. [“So it came about on the third day, when it was morning, that there were thunder and lightning flashes and a thick cloud upon the mountain and a very loud trumpet sound, so that all the people who were in the camp trembled… Now Mount Sinai was all in smoke because the Lord descended upon it in fire; and its smoke ascended like the smoke of a furnace, and the whole mountain quaked violently. When the sound of the trumpet grew louder and louder, Moses spoke and God answered him with thunder”] (Ex. 19:16-19).
The just Judge of the universe descended with smoke, fire, thunder, lightning, and earthquake to give His law. The law or the Ten Commandments, express the moral character of God which He has commanded of all those made in His image. Yet the history of the world is the history of breaking God’s laws. John pictures this God who exercises absolute sovereignty over all the earth, descending with His judgment to vindicate His law. That is the judgment of the 7th seal. God will vindicate His righteousness through judgment upon the world. Every believer that has met with persecution, opposition, and antagonism can be certain that not one threat or injustice will pass the severity and totality of His judgment.
(Dr. Phil A. Newton)
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