"Then I looked, and behold, a white cloud, and seated on the cloud one like a son of man, with a golden crown on his head, and a sharp sickle in his hand. And another angel came out of the temple, calling with a loud voice to him who sat on the cloud, "Put in your sickle, and reap, for the hour to reap has come, for the harvest of the earth is fully ripe." So he who sat on the cloud swung his sickle across the earth, and the earth was reaped."
(Revelation 14:14-16)
The vision granted John and recorded at the end of Revelation 14, John sees Jesus, Israel’s Messiah, bring about the great and final harvest, as well as the trampling of the grapes, symbolic of God’s judgment upon the wicked. During his own messianic ministry, Jesus spoke of his return at the end of the age to judge the world, raise the dead and make all things new in terms of a great harvest.
When Jesus explains the parable of the weeds to his disciples in (Matthew 13:37), Jesus states that “the one who sowed the good seed is the Son of Man. The field is the world, and the good seed stands for the sons of the kingdom. The weeds are the sons of the evil one, and the enemy who sows them is the devil. The harvest is the end of the age, and the harvesters are angels. `As the weeds are pulled up and burned in the fire, so it will be at the end of the age.’”
Clearly the harvest at the end of the age is the second advent of Jesus, when judgment comes upon the entire world. The wheat is spared and stored in the barn (v. 29). But the weeds are thrown into the fire. This seems to indicate that the harvest of the grain is associated with the final ingathering of the church, as when Jesus speaks of his angels as gathering the elect from the four corners of the earth, and when one is suddenly taken while the other is left to face the judgment (Matthew 24:31; 36-41).
Indeed, in Revelation 14:4, John has already spoken of believers as the first fruits of the harvest offered to God.
Therefore, it is likely that John’s vision of a harvest of grain is a glimpse of final blessing, when the harvest of souls is completed and all of the God’s elect have been gathered by the angels.
(Kim Riddlebarger)
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