Sweet in the Mouth, Bitter Within

10:1-4A rainbow, a roar, and a sealed-up sound

John sees "a mighty angel coming down out of the sky, clothed with a cloud. A rainbow was on his head. His face was like the sun, and his feet like pillars of fire" (WEB). Almost every detail is borrowed glory. Cloud and fire recall the Exodus, when God led his people through the wilderness. The rainbow recalls the covenant sign God set in the sky after the flood in Genesis 9:13, and Ezekiel saw a rainbow around the throne in Ezekiel 1. The sun-bright face echoes the vision of Jesus in chapter 1.

Who is he? Some interpreters think this is Christ himself, because of those echoes. Most think he is a created angel, since he swears an oath by someone greater and since John is later rebuked for bowing to an angel (22:8-9). Either way, he arrives as a herald, and every ray of his brightness belongs to the One who sent him.

Notice his feet: one on the sea, one on the land. This is a claim on everything. Rome liked to present itself as master of both land and sea, and here a servant of the true King plants himself on both.

He cries out "as a lion roars," and the prophet Amos had said what that means: "The lion has roared. Who will not fear?" Seven thunders answer, a picture of the voice of the Lord, which Psalm 29 mentions seven times. John begins to write, since he has been told to write all he sees, but a voice stops him: "Seal up the things which the seven thunders said, and don't write them."

10:5-7The oath: no more delay

The angel lifts his right hand and swears "by him who lives forever and ever, who created heaven and the things that are in it, the earth and the things that are in it, and the sea and the things that are in it." The raised hand comes straight from Daniel 12:7, where a figure above the river swore by "him who lives forever" about how long the suffering of God's people would last. An oath needs someone greater to stand on, and the only One greater than all is the Creator. Hebrews 6:13 notes that when God wanted to swear, he had no one greater, so he swore by himself.

What is the oath? It is "that there will no longer be delay." The Greek word is chronos, which usually means time, and the older King James rendering "that there should be time no longer" has led many to imagine the end of time itself. The context points to something warmer and more urgent: no more waiting. This answers the martyrs under the altar, who cried "How long?" in 6:10. God has heard. The delay has an end.

And what will end it? The oath continues: "but in the days of the voice of the seventh angel, when he is about to sound, then the mystery of God is finished, as he declared to his servants, the prophets." In the New Testament a mystery is a purpose of God once hidden and now unveiled and accomplished. The verb for "declared" is euangelizo, the word behind "gospel." God announced good news to the prophets, and now he is about to bring it home.

10:8-10Take it and eat it

John is told to take "the book which is open in the hand of the angel." Think back to chapter 5, where a scroll sealed with seven seals could be opened by no one but the Lamb, and John wept. Now a little scroll lies open in an angel's hand. Interpreters differ on what it is. Some say it is the same scroll the Lamb opened, now delivered for John to proclaim. Others say it is a smaller message, perhaps the prophecy of chapters 11 to 13, or the word of God in a broader sense. What all agree is that it is God's own word, now unsealed, and that John must do more than look at it.

"Take it, and eat it up." The image comes from Ezekiel 2 and 3, where the prophet was told to eat a scroll written with lamentation, mourning, and woe, and found it "as sweet as honey in my mouth." Jeremiah described the same thing: "Your words were found, and I ate them. Your words were to me a joy and the rejoicing of my heart." The psalmist agreed: "How sweet are your promises to my taste, more than honey to my mouth!"

Then the twist. The honey turns sour in the stomach. God's word is sweet because it is true and because it promises the end of evil. It is bitter because it also announces judgment, and because it will cost the people who carry it. Ezekiel himself went away "in bitterness." A word that has not cost you something has probably not been fully eaten.

10:11Prophesy again

The chapter closes with a commission: "You must prophesy again over many peoples, nations, languages, and kings." Two small words matter. "Again" tells us John is not starting from scratch. He has been prophesying since chapter 1, and now he is sent back out with a fuller mouth. "Many" tells us the audience is far larger than seven churches in Asia. The fourfold list of peoples, nations, languages, and kings is a pattern the book loves, and it shows up in the worship of heaven in 5:9 and in the multitude of 7:9. The nations who refused to repent in chapter 9 are exactly the nations to whom John is sent.

Here is the answer to yesterday's question. When judgment does not soften hearts, God sends a witness. The church's calling is not to stand at a safe distance and be right, but to take the word in, feel its sweetness and its weight, and carry it out to a world that has said no.

That commission leads straight into the next chapter. John is about to be handed a measuring rod and introduced to two witnesses who prophesy in a hostile city. The bitter part of the scroll is about to begin.

Underneath all of this stands the cross. The word of God can be sweet to us in the end only because the Lamb first took the bitter cup in our place, praying in the garden, "let this cup pass away from me; nevertheless, not what I desire, but what you desire."